SUBJECT: ALIEN ABDUCTION OR ALIEN PRODUCTIONS? FILE: UFO3057 ALIEN ABDUCTION OR ALIEN PRODUCTIONS?: SOME NOT SO UNUSUAL PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. by Robert A. Baker Lexington, KY October 1992 Recently, proponents of and believers in the reality of alien abductions Hopkins (1987), Jacobs (1992), Striber (1987) and the authors of the report _Unusual Personal Experiences: An Analysis of the Data From Three National Surveys_ (1992) have engaged in an intensive and far-reaching media blitz designed to convince the American populace that not only have millions of men, women, and children in this nation been abducted but that we, as a people, are powerless to do anything about it. Moreover, the Alien Abduction believers (AA) also consider this mystery to be on a par with the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of man's destiny, and the mystery of life itself. Such an unusual belief and the accompanying argumant for a profound mystery is not only astounding enough in this day and age but it is amplified by such mind-boggling claims as "one out of every fifty adult American may have had UFO abduction experiences, "(Bigelow, 1992, pg. 15) and "many of the presenting symptoms offered by these patients (alleged abductees) can only be satisfacorily explained by assuming that their abduction recollections have an objective reality." (Bigelow, 1992, pg. 11). Not only are such statements gross exaggerations and patently false but they also clearly reveal an amazing level of naivete and an absence of understanding of some of the intracacies and subtleties of normal human behavior. On the contrary, most of the presenting symptoms reported by the alleged abductees _can_ be satisfactorily accounted for without resorting to the highly improbable and physically unsubstantiated claims of abduction by alien spaceships. In fact, each and every one of the reported symptoms of an alien abduction as chronicled in the Bigelow report are in no way unique or unexplained. They are in fact, "Old Hat."(Even better, perhaps, "Old Hag" cf. Hufford 1982). They are quite familiar and very well known by many trained and experienced clinicians, students of anomolous behavior, and all medical practitioners interested in sleep disorders. For students of sleep disorders, hypnosis and suggestion, iatrogenesis, memory aberrations, and hallucinatory phenomena there is nothing whatsoever puzzling or unexplained. The argument by the AA proponents that "no current medical or psychiatric explanation for these accounts has proved viable" is flatly untrue. The corollary AA claim that "there is virtually no mention of these events in the literature of mental illness" is not only mistaken but shows an obvious ignorance of the medical literature. Under the current MEDLINE RECORD on hallucinations, for example, there are over 500 entries for the years 1990- through September 1992. AA believers are correct, however, if they have scanned the current psychological and psychiatric literature for entries bearing the headings or titles such as "alien abductions," UFO contacts, demon possession, extraterrestial rape, or exogenous interspecies breeding." If, however, the AA proponents will look under the category of Sleep Disorders they will find 500 MEDLINE entries(1990-1992) and 32 entries(1989-92) for sleep paralysis. Perusal of these items will be of value with regard to alleged abductions by aliens and other such nighttime visitors. Nevertheless, at the moment, AA believers are proposing a cluster of key behavioral indicators which, they argue, when taken together constitute a syndrome common to all cases of abductions by aliens. The alien abduction syndrome (AAS) indicators and their prevalence are as follows: 1) Nearly one adult in five has wakened up paralyzed with the sense of a strange figure or presence in the room; 2) Nearly one adult in eight has experienced a period of an hour or more in which he or she was apparently lost but could not remember why; 3) One adult in ten has felt the experience of actually flying through the air without knowing why or how; 4) One adult in twelve has seen unusual lights or balls of light in a room without understanding what was causing them; 5) One adult in twelve has discovered puzzling scars on his or her body without remembering how or where they were acquired. (Bigelow, 1992, pgs. 14-15). According to the _Unusual Personal Experiences Report_ cited earlier apparently 2 percent of the American adults sampled reported having had four or five of these "strong indicators" sometime in their lives. On this basis the AA believers have concluded that one out of every fifty adult Americans probably has suffered an "alien abduction." The AA enthusiasts also maintain that the typical abductee coming to therapy enters therapy "with complaints about anxiety, depression, phobias, or a pattern of frightening dreams. The patient might also be bothered about an incident involving an unexplained time gap in memory. In many respects the patient might present symptoms typical of post-traaumatic stress disorder. However, patients will often withold memories of the more bizarre UFO-related events, either out of fear they will be rejected or because the patients do not connect them with the symptoms. One woman known to Hopkins stated she had been in therapy for seven years and yet said nothing to her therapist about her consciously remembered UFO experiences. This reticience is not unusual. these patients might also have dreams or vague rememberances of such images as hospital operating rooms, bright lights, huge-eyed alien beings, or even 'impossible' animals such as very large owls or spiders. Careful questioning--especially under hypnosis--may reveal that patients have specific memories of having been immobilized by impassive alien beings who remove them, typically from a car or home, and then transport them into a UFO..." (Bigelow Report, 1992 pgs. 10-11). During adolescence and beyond, the abductions are likely to continue with increasing attention to the genitals and abdomen...Many such accounts from both male and female abductees suggest that reproduction experiments are central to the abduction experience...A variety of abduction locations have been described...In a majority, however, the abductees awake in bed, fully aware of their surroundings, but physically paralyzed to such a degree that they may not even be able to move their eyes. This state of paralysis often continues for several minutes. The abductees usually sense a presence in the room but very often actually see one or more diminutive, large-eyed figures standing beside the bed...Abductees may then be walked or floated toward a landed UFO, but very often they recall rising up in mid-air toward the bottom of a hovering UFO. This latter experience is often recalled later as a 'flying dream' in which the landscape below is remembered in vivid, accurate detail.(Bigelow, 1992, pg. 12)...Abduction experiences are often accompanied by inexplicable humming, beeping or puzzling sounds which, though perceived by the abductee, are usually inaudible to others in the same vicinity. Unusual visual phenomena, such as bright lights or floating, maneuvering balls of light inside one's room are also reported frequently." (op cit. pg. 13). Although a number of additional unusual or anomolous events unique to the particular abductee have been reported by the AA believers, the above experiences seem to encompass the most common reports of the "abduction experience" and make up into the "abduction syndrome" (AS). Now let us see if there is any explanation for such unusual events and personal experiences _other than_ an actual UFO abduction by extraterrestial or interdimensional humanoid-like aliens. SLEEP PARALYSIS AND HYPNOGOGIC AND HYPNOPOMPIC HALLUCINATIONS Students of the sleep disorders are _very_ familiar with an unusual but non-pathological condition known as sleep paralysis (SP). SP is not a disease although it may often be mistaken for one especially when it is accompanied by nocturnal angina or nocturnal asthma. SP always occurs during the transition period between sleep and wakefullness and if the paralysis manifests itself as one is falling asleep it is called _hypnogogic_(predormital). If the paralysis occurs as one is waking up it is called _hypnopompic_ (postdormital). In both cases the subject is fully aware of his condition and is unable to move any of the voluntary muscles or speak. The paralysis may last for only a few seconds or for several minutes. The paralysis is terminated instantly whenever the subject moves any muscle or is touched by someone. The experience is nearly always accompanied by a feeling of anxiety or dread, acute tachycardia (rapid heart rate), dyspnea (difficult or labored breathing), and the sensation of a heavy weight pressing on the chest. The paralysis is frequently accompanied by auditory hallucinations such as heavy footsteps, noises of heavy objects being dragged, voices, humming, buzzing or ringing sounds as well as extremely vivid visual hallucinations particularly of people, demons, ghosts, animals, birds, et.al., being present in the bedroom. Of particular interest is the fact that all of these hallucinations are _superimposed on the reality of the room and the unusual situation the experiencer is in._ Therefore they _seem to be very real_ (liddon, 1967). As to the etiology of SP and it accompanying hypnopompic hallucinations (HH) the exact cause is unknown but the SP and HH syndrome is closely associated with disrupted sleep-wake cycles, periods of high stress, excessive alcohol and drug consumption, sleeping in unfamiliar or unusual places, and it is also known to be associated with narcolepsy (sudden short uncontrollable spells of sleep) but it can occur as an isolated and independent event in normal and healthy individuals (schneck, 1960). As for its prevalence, a number of seperate and independent studies have shown an occurance rate between 8.1 and 41 percent in selected populations (Payn, 1965, Penn, et.al., 1981, Bell, et.al., 1984, and Fukuda, et.al., 1987). While it is more common in females and among divorcees and widowers and is strongly correlated with poor health, there is no sizeable correlation with age, race, education, or the size of the community (Sours, 1963). HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SP AND HH SYNDROME In earlier times attacks of sleep paralysis were known as incubus (male demon) or succubus (female demon) attacks. The Latin word _incubus_ means "one who presses or crushes". Ancient philosophers considered these attacks to be caused by indigestion and recommended fasting as a way to control them (Rehm, 1991). Descriptions of such demons leaping onto one's chest and choking the sleeper are reported by Horace, Plutarch, Herodotus, and Galen. In the early middle Ages the Judeo-Christian literature contained many stories of lustful angels visiting sleepers and engaging in intercourse. Even Saint Augustine (354-430AD) confirmed the existence of the incubi and the succubi and stated "These attacks are affirmed by persons of such indutitable honesty that it would be impudence to deny it." (Rehm, 1991) In German folklore the demon was called Grendal or "the grinder" and Slavic folklore refers to the demon Vjek who "lies down on the unsuspecting sleeper and compresses his chest." In general, these attacks are considered as "nightmares" and the Scandinavian term "mara", the Greek term "mora", the Bohemian word "murra", the Anglosaxon "moere", the French word "cauchemar", and our own English "nightmare" are all realted. It is also of interest to note that Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century believed that demons became succubi in order to extract sperm from men and use it to impregnate women when they took the form of incubi. Moreover, not only did the Medeival church accept these demons as real but their existence provided a most convenient explanation for embarassingly pregnant nuns, still born or defective infants, and so on. These nightmarish demon attacks not only flourished throughout the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries but have continued unabated into our own time as alien abductions and intergalactic breeding experiments. Moreover, as one might expect, sleep paralysis and hypnopompic and hypnogogic demon attacks are a very popular literary theme. They have been described in great detail by writers from Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Hardy, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Isaac Singer, Alex Munthe, J.R.R. Tolkien, Matthew G. Lewis and in our own time by Stephan King and Peter Straub. To illustrate the similarity between the fictional and factual accounts of this phenomena let us look first at Straub's fictional account taken from his 1979 novel, _Ghost Story_: "When sleep finally came to Ricky Henderson, it was as if he were not merely dreaming, but had in fact been lifted bodily and still awake into another room...He did not know how he knew it, but he knew that something was going to happen, and that he was afraid of it. He was unable to leave the bed; but even if his muscles were working, he knew with the same knowledge that he would be unable to escape whatever was coming...Beneath [the quilt], his legs lay paralysed...When Ricky looked up, he realized that he could see every detail of the wooden planks on the wall with a more than usual clarity...as he listened, he heard some complex form dragging itself out of the cellar...Ricky tried again to force his legs to move, but the two lumps of fabric did not even twitch...The noises from downstairs were suddenly louder - he could hear the thing breathing...Ricky's face was wet with perspiration. What most firghtened him was that he couldn't be sure if he were dreaming or not...But it did not feel at all like a dream. His senses were alert, his mind was clear, the entire experience lacked the rather disembodied, disconnected atmosphere of a dream...And if he was wide awake, then the thing banging and thundering on the stairs was going to get him, because he couldn't move." -- from _Ghost Story_ Peter Straub, 1979 For the actual account let us now turn to Dr, Ronald Siegel's description of his own personal experience with the SP and HH syndrome: "I was awakened by the sound of my bedroom door opening. I was on my side and able to see the luminescent dial of the alarm clock. It was 4:20 A.M. I heard footsteps approaching my bed, then heavy breathing. There seemed to be a murky presence in the room. I tried to throw off the covers and get up, but I was pinned to the bed. There was a weight on my chest. The more I struggled, the more I was unable to move. My heart was pounding. I strained to breathe. The presence got closer, and I caught a whiff of a dusty odor. The smell seemed old, like something that had been kept in an attic too long. The air itself was dry and cool, reminding me of the inside of a cave. Suddenly a shadow fell on the clock. _Omigod! This is no joke!_ SOmething touched my neck and arm. A voice whispered in my ear. Each word was expelled from a mouth foul with tobacco. The language sounded strange, almost like English spoken backward. It didn't make any sense. Somehow the words gave rise to images in my mind (ESP). I saw rotting swamps full of toadstools, hideous reptiles, and other mephitic horrors. In my bedroom I could see only a shadow looming over my bed. I was terrified... I signaled my muscles to move, but the presence immediately exerted all its weight on my chest. The weight spread through my body, gluing me to the bed. I was paralyzed. Still on my side, I was unable to turn my neck to see what was setting on me. I looked at the clock on the night table. It was still ticking audibly. Next to the clock was the book I had been reading. A library card--my card complete with coffee stains--marked my place. My eyes scanned the wall. I saw a spot I had been meaning to fix because the paint had peeled. In the corner was a cactus plant I had been nuturing for years. This was definitely my bedroom and it looked normal. I was aware of my surroundings, oriented, and awake. _This is no dream! This is really happening!_ A hand grasped my arm and held it tightly. The intruder was doing the reality testing on me! The hand felt cold and dead... Then part of the mattress next to me caved in. Someone climbed onto the bed! The presence shifted its weight and straddled my body, folding itslef along the curve of my back. I heard the bed start to creak. There was a texture of sexual intoxication and terror in the room. Throughout it all, I was forced to listen to the intruder's indeterminable whispering. The voice sounded female. I _knew_ it was evil. It said something that sounded like 'Deelanor...Deelanor'(Ronald spelled backwards). The intruder's heavy gelatinous body was crushing the life out of me. It was like breathing through a thin straw...Now the intruder was squeezing me like a soda straw. My childhood fear of suffocation was returning. I started to lose consciousness. Suddenly the voice stopped. I sensed the intruder moving slowly out of the room. Gradually the pressure on my chest eased. It was 4:30 AM I sprang out of bed, grabbed a flashlight, and turned toward the bedroom door. There was nothing there...(pgs. 83-85, Fire In The Brain, 1992) Dr. Ronald Siegel, the narrator of this experience is an outstanding psychologist, a distinguished University professor, and a world-renowned authority on the effects of drugs on behavior. Yet, he was so disturbed by this experience that he was in a dazed state most of the following day and was so intrigued by it that he spent several days looking into its cause and nature. because his perceptions of the clock and other items in his bedroom he felt there had to be _something real_ about the presence attacking him. He though at first it was just a bad dream or an anxiety dream. SInce these typically happen _before_ awakening occurs, it could not explain how his experience began _after_ his awakening. He then thought that it might have been a "night terror", i.e., a spontaneous awakening from sleep followed by physiological signs of extreme fear: tachycardia, rapid breathing, and heavy persiration. Yet, where the sleeper usually screams in panic or walks or runs out of the room, Siegel was paralyzed. Moreover, people rarely remember night terrors and, since they occur in non-REM (rapid-eye-movement-) sleep, they are not dreams per se, but the result of a failure to control one's anxiety after being suddenly awakened from deep sleep. Finally, night terrors are almost exclusively found in children not adults. Siegel finally concluded that he had, indeed, suffered from the well-known sleep paralysis phenomenon accomapnied by a hypnopompic hallucination. In his analysis and elucidation of this experience Siegel stresses that it is of the utmost importance to fully understand that with the right set, with the accompanying expectations and attitudes in the right setting--the physical and psychological environment--a false perception can have the full force and impact of reality. In his words, "True hallucinations are strictly mental creations. The mental elements-- the images, thoughts, fantasies, memories, and dreams are the only building blocks necessary for the construction of the final perception." (Fire In The Brain, pg. 96). There is, indeed, a fine line between mental experiences such as thoughts and between fantasies, dreams, and hallucinations and, for many people, these experiences can evolve or change into one another. A dream, upon awakening, can easily become an hallucination. Similarly, a thought as we are falling asleep can change into a dream. The internal perceptual mechanisms are very much alike and, in many situations, it is very difficult to tell whether the perception is real or illusory. Normally, real perceptions are more salient, more vivid, much clearer and are easily recognized as being due to an external rather than an internal stimulus. Neither can you change them by an act of will. Mental events that have these qualities (and many mental events we experience as the result of drugs, dreams, sleep deprivation, excessive stress, starvation, as well as SP and HH states do have similiar qualities) are almost impossible to distinguish from true perceptions. If someone as sophisticated and knowledgeable as Dr. SIegel had difficulty in recognizing the hallucination for what is was, what can we assume about those experiencers who are much much more naive? It is very easy to understand why they would be haunted and disturbed and, perhaps, even believe they were going crazy. It is also easily seen why they would repress such a frightening and unexplainable experience, avoid thinking about it, and evince--at a later date--symptoms equivalent to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). SP with the accompanying hallucination is a most frightening ordeal. The physical changes accompanying SP are open eyes, muscular paralysis, and respiratory difficulties. The sufferer is often pale, anxious, and afraid and is subject to highly erotic sensations. He or she is totally unable to move or to engage in voluntary movements of any kind despite the fact that he or she is awake, aware, and conscious. The paralysis is, indeed, a terrifying experience and one that is fully remembered at a later date. It is while the victim is caught up in the paralysis that the hallucinatory visions appear. In the hypnopompic state the brain is unable to instantly switch from the dreaming state to the waking state. At this time those brain circuits activated by the dreams continue to send signals--which could be the images of a ghost(most frequently), a demon (such as in the incubus and succubus or "old hag" attacks- This is the term that the folklorist David J. Hufford 1982 and others use to describe the SP and HH hallucinatory phenomenon) or an extraterrestial alien--to the cerebral cortex where the frontal lobes assume the signals are coming from the outside world rather than from within. While in this "waking dream" state the dreamer sees, hears, feels, and smells things that _are actually there_ in the environment. The real environment stimuli then become entangled with the dream stimuli and then both the true and the false perceptions are organized in such a manner that the brain assumes that it is wide awake when it is, actually, still asleep and dreaming. Moreover, awakening in a state of SP can cause one to hyperventilate and then feel a tightness or heaviness in the chest. The hyperventilation then diminsihes the supply of oxygen going to the brain and the lack of oxygen then produces _hyperacusis_, i.e., a condition in which ordinary sounds seem to be unusually loud. Then, even the slightest noise will cause the dreamer to experience numerous auditory hallucinations such as footsteps, garbled voices, heavy breathing, buzzing, humming, clanks, and bangs and so forth. If the oxygen supply is further restricted, the sexual pleasure centers in the brain are stimulated. Knowledge of this phenomena is often used in auto-erotic aphyxia, i.e., the practice of tying a rope around the neck during masturbation in order to heighten the orgasm. It is also why the AA syndrome is replete with images of alien rape, probing of sex organs, and so forth. frequently, this sort of sexual arousal is carried over from REM sleep and, in the male, usually results in penile erection. Many autonomic nervous system changes also occur, including changes in skin temperature and skin resistance which give rise to tingling sensations, sensations of cold, as well as the strong emotional responses of fear and panic. These emotional effects give rise to heightened sensitivity to minor environmental stimuli that, under normal circumstances, would usually be ignored. The emotion of fear causes the pupils to dilate and then even the most simple and innocent of shadows become monsters, ghosts, demons, or threatening aliens. THE HYPNOGOGIC STATE In the hypnogogic state a number of equally frightening events can occur. First, as one begins to fall asleep there is a significant reduction of proprioceptive impulses coming from the relaxing musculature. On occasions, when one is falling asleep this sudden reduction is interpreted by the brain as a loss of balance as one is startled awake. Further relaxation, as one continues to fall asleep, causes a decrease in the amplitude and frequency of the brain waves as the alpha waves of wakefullness are progressively replaced by the slower theta waves. As a direct result of the loss of bodily sensation, the hypnogogic dreamer begins to feel that he is floating through space or that he no longer has a body, or that he is a free-floating mind or awareness without a body, i.e. he has an "out-of-body" experience (OOBE). This is why that many believers in the AA syndrome report floating from their beds into a UFO and floating through walls and so on. Usually accompanying this sensation is a loss of volition control and a sense of paralysis, eg., if _there is no body there is nothing to move._ Descending further into sleep and the hypnogogic dream state a number of unusual images will often appear. these dream images most often begin with flashes of or balls of light, that seem to be swelling and growing larger as they approach the dreamer. No matter what form or shape the images take, they are most frequently reported as round or oval and they appear to expand in size the longer the dreamer observes them. Known in the clinical literature as the _Isakower phenomenon_ this unusual but fairly common experience is named after the Austrian psychoanalyst who first described its clinical characteristics (Isakower, 1938). This phenomenon can occur while falling asleep or upon awakening and may be accompanied by a gritty sensation around the mouth as well as a milky or salty taste (Asaad, 1990). Many psychoanalysts believe the experience represents an awakening of early nursing experiences but Cavenar and Caudill (1979) suggest that it merely reflects anxiety due to oral frustration or that it is simply an association with dreams caused by anxiety or stress (Stern, 1961). Stern also describes a condition known as _blank hallucinations_ which are "stereotyped sensory perceptions without appropriate external stimuli. Lacking any content related to persons, objects, or events they are close to elementary hallucinations as which we designate such unformed perceptions as sparks, lightening streaks, cloudlike phenomena, etc...They differ in intensity, frequency, and duration, to full hallucinations (or even pseudo-hallucinations, i.e. hallucinations which are recognized as such but not perceived with sensory distinctness). They may last a few seconds, or minutes, or hours, or months...When awake the patient is usually aware of the hallucinatory character of the phenomena (pseudo-hallucinations)." (pg. 205) Stern also notes that many hallucinatory phenomena of this nature, i.e., sensations as dizziness, being engulfed by vague cloudy masses, changes in body feelings, feeling of falling and sinking or floating, distortions of space perception are strikingly identical with those reported by patients with organic vestibular disturbances; they are always felt as imminent death. One of my own clients, after reading both Streiber's _Communion_ and Hopkins _Intruders_ a few days later woke up and saw a tattletale gray face glowing on the wall over his dresser. A few minutes later, following a brief period of sleep, the image of the face reappeared. In his words, "The face was a little bigger than mine. It glowed and had large almond-shaped, jet black eyes bulginf out of its forehead. The eyes had no pupils and the face did not look at me straight-on, it was turned a little to the right. I was so mesmerized by the eyes I don't recall any other feature other than vertical wrinkles on its cheeks giving him a creepy creepy look." Over a period of several months the client saw images of a dead deer, a red haze, a dog's face, a cascade of bubbles all over the wall at the foot of his bed, numerous white glows at his window, flashes of light, a Santa Claus figure, rabbits, a pig's head, geometrical figures both in color and black and white--as well as monkeys and numerous faces of both men and women. Of further interest is the fact that his son also reported both hypnopompic and hypnogogic dreams as well as the Isakower phenomena on at least two occasions. Physical and mental exams of both the client and his son could find nothing amiss. Both were, in every way, normal nad healthy. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of all were the drawings my client made of the "tattletale gray faces"; all were almost identical to the cover illustration on Streiber's _Communion_. It is abundantly clear that as Siegel has noted, "the drowsy person on the hypnogogic state is just as open to suggestions as subjects in the hypnotized state." Before leaving the topic of sleep paralysis it might be wise to look at another common form of complete or partial muscular paralysis (technically known as cataplexy) that is also associated with narcolepsy mentioned earlier. Dr. William C. Dement, an authority on sleep disorders, notes that people who suffer from narcolepsy also suffer from cataplexy. Cataplectics are fully aware and are aware of what is going on around them but are simply unable to move. These sort of attacks can occur at any time, but most often occur when the victim is emotionally aroused. People have fallen victim to cataplexy while playing baseball, making love, or watching TV or a movie. While they are wide awake they are totally unable to move a muscle. After a few minutes of relaxation and calm, however, they usually gain full muscular control. In the early 1960s, however, Dement and his colleagues discovered that narcoleptic patients begin their night's sleep by moving immediately from wafefullness into the rapid-eye-movement (REM) or dreaming phase of sleep, rather than into the non-rapid-eye-movement(NREM) phase (Dement, 1976). Therefore it is clear that the hypnogogic hallucinations are vivid dreams associated with periods of REM sleep. Dement was also able to explain the mysterious attacks of sleep paralysis and cataplexy. We have known for a long time that during REM periods of normal sleep the brain exerts a powerful inhibitory influence that paralyzes the arms, legs, and trunk of the sleeper. This paralysis allows us to have vivid dreams and still remain asleep. If the intense activity of the dreaming brain were not blocked at the level of the spinal cord by a strong inhibitory effect, the sleeper would literally jump out of bed and carry out his dream fantasies. Spinal inhibition has to be quite strong to keep the muscles in check. Most of the time all we notice is an occasional twitch or spasmodic jerk. Another regulatory mechanism, keeps the inhibitory force in check while we are awake, except in narcoleptic victims. In these patients the inhibitory process breaks through and drops them like a rock. Nightly when the narcoleptic victim goes to sleep, the first thing he experiences is cataplexy, and the other REM process soon follows. But, if the vicitm tries to move before he is actually asleep, he will find that he is paralyzed. Then, if he is particularly imaginative, he will find himself caught up in some very realistic experiences and will be convinced that he is not asleep. In fact, although paralysis is the rule, many of the normal features of wakefullness may remain. The dreamer may be able to move his arms and legs, and even sit up in bed with the images still persisting. As for the content of these hypnogogic hallucinations, it can be horrible or benign, and in many instances it will be related to the dreamer's current concerns. If such concerns be related to or involved with science-fiction themes, horror novels or movies, media stories about UFOs and aliens, then the dreamer will probably experience contacts with aliens, ghosts or demons, or demented killers, or something resembling and alien contact or abduction. Christopher Evans reported the case of a scientist who had been struggling with a problem for months with no success. He was getting very discouraged until one morning he woke to see ghosts of the world's greatest scientists- Newton, Galileo, Darwin, et.al.,-- marching past his bed, telling him not to give up, that he would win in the end. (Evans, 1985) Similarly, most of the ghosts, monsters, aliens and so forth that visit sleepers in the middle of the night are creations of the dreaming brain putting on its own SP and HH extravaganza. Contrary to popular belief, narcolepsy is not a rare disorder. Dement and his coworkers found over 2,000 sufferers in the San Francisco Bay area alone, and they have estimated as many as 100,000 people in the nation may be afflicted with this condition. The total number of people having hypnopompic and hypnogogic hallucinations must be sizeable indeed, including both narcoleptics and non-narcoleptics. What is equally cleaar is that the Roper survey is sampling this very extensive population. McKellar and Simpson (1954) made an attempt to identify SP and HH experiences in college students and found as many as 67% of them reporting such imagery. Even this substantial figure is considered by McKellar to be an underestimate of the real number, and in 1979 he characterized the SP and HH imagery as a universal human phenomenon (McKellar, 1979). McKellar also made a very useful distinction between hypnogogic "sequences" and hypnogogic "episodes". Sequences are simply a group of rapidly changing images of objects, persons, or places in apparently random order and they lack any sort of coherence. Episodes, on the other hand, involve schemes or themes of longer duration, with clear definition and structure. Their content may often be a mere continuation of recent perceptions and thoughts, or on other occasions, more symbolic or dreamlike, or fantistic, unreal, or totally foreign and unrelated to the mental life of the person when awake. HYPNOSIS AND SUGGESTION Whether known and admitted or known and denied, believers in alien abductions should relaize that hypnosis is, essentially, social compliance, relaxation and suggestion as well as the fact that--just as in dreams and the hallucinatory states--fact and fiction are readily and easily confounded. Very few memories obtained via hypnosis emerge completely pure and veridical. With regard to memories of traumatic or highly emotional events--especially those involving fear--these, in particular, are usually confused and confabulated. This is especially true for those individuals who have experienced the SP and HH syndrome and are still not sure whether or not what they experienced was real. This experience is, to most, so unique and so frightening they do, indeed, want to be reassured that they are not "losing their mind." If such victims are fortunate enough to be treated by a mental health professional who is familiar with the SP and HH syndrome are, in no way, "crazy" or bedeviled. They will also be reassured that no demons, no incubi nor succubi, no ghosts nor monsters, no little gray, red, or green men nor exotic extraterrestial aliens have, in the past, or will, in the future, attack, rape, violate, or experiment upon, or abduct them. The anxiety of and the fear and trembling of the victim will be focused upon and relieved. If, on the other hand, the victim falls into the hands of therapists who are unfamiliar with the SP and HH syndrome, they may be told, "Don't worry. It was only a bad dream, a nightmare. You are not going crazy. Are you sure that you were not molested as a child? What do you feel guilty about? Are you having trouble with your spouse?" And so on. This common therapeutic approach would indeed, leave the SP and HH sufferer feeling disgruntled and frustrated and looking elsewhere for an answer and for someone who _can_ help. If such a victim has also heard of the AA syndrome (and in our day and time not having heard of it is, frankly, impossible, considering the amount of time and attention that the media has given to the subject) he or she may conclude that he or she "is" or "was" also an abductee. Let us, for example, look at two typical instances of the AA syndrome as described by Budd Hopkins and Whitley Streiber and then compare and contrast them with the typical SP and HH cluster of symptoms. First, Hopkins: "(Sandy) wanted to report a dream she had recently...which she felt had been almost too real to have been literally a dream. The essence of her recollection was that _she had been awakened in the night, paralyzed, and taken from her house by three shadowy, large-headed figures._" (pg. 44) "Andrea had read my book...and wanted to tell me about several 'dreams' she remembered from her childhood...About six weeks before she wrote to me she 'dreamed' that she awoke in her bedroom with a small, gray-skinned figure standing beside her bed. The man she lives with was asleep next to her, but _she was unable to move to alert him in any way._ She was floated out of her bed, across a field behind her apartment and into a UFO. Then, as she sat paralyzed, on a table, the small figure pressed a long needle up her nostril..." (pg. 124) Ed had been napping in his truck when..."I awoke completely paralyzed. I was wide awake, but _the only thing I could move_ was my eyes...(_the radio mike) was within easy reach but I couldn't move._ It seemed like I lay there for a long time, but it probably wasn't more than a couple of minutes. The paralysis left." (Under hypnotic regression, Ed remembers being transported to a UFO and forced to copulate with female aliens.) (pg. 132) "(Dan's) recollection involved his waking up in bed and seeing three of the large-headed, black-eyed creatures standing in his room...He felt that the experience was totally realistic and yet dreamlike at the same time...(Under hypnotic regression): Does she seem real or does she seem something out of a dream? She was real....(she rapes him) Can you embrace her? Do you hug her? No, it's just like I lay there..."Does the room look like a dream room? It seems like my room.... She does the whole thing? And you don't move? Right." (pgs.149-151) From _Intruders: The Incredible Visitations At Copley Woods_, 1987 Now let us look at Streiber's descriptions: "I don't remember falling asleep or lying awake...It was as if I had become profoundly paralyzed. Although I wanted desperately to move, I could not...a state of raw fear so great that it swept about me like a thick, suffocating curtain, turning paralysis into a condition that seemed close to death...Sometime in the night I awoke and found myself unable to move or even open my eyes. I had the distinct impression that there was something in my left nostril...I tried to struggle...The next thing I remembered, it was morning...There are six figures standing at the end of the bed looking right at both of us...They are menacing-looking...Strange...I feel like I've just gotten some kind of weight on me. I want to get up...They're just standing there." from _Communion_, 1987 "In the wee hours of the night I abruptly woke up. There was somebody quite close to the bed...I caught a glimpse of someone crouching just behind my bedside table...I could see by the huge, dark eyes who it was...I felt an indescribable sense of menace. It was hell on earth to be there, and yet I couldn't move, couldn't cry out, couldn't get away. I lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies. Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy, and dark and sinister...I still remember that thing crouching there, so terribly ugly, its arms and legs like the limbs of a great insect, its eyes glaring at me...Every muscle in my body was stiff to the point of breaking. I ached. My stomach felt as if it had been stuffed with molten lead. I could hardly breathe." from _Transformation_, 1988 When we compare these reports with the descriptions of the SP and HH hallucinations cited earlier, i.e. the Siegel report, it is very hard to tell one from the other. Streiber's and Hopkins' and Siegel's accounts are, for all practical purposes identical. _The essential and significant difference is that SP and HH victims going to knowledgeable therapists are told about sleep paralysis and hallucinations whereas those going to believers in alien abductions are told they have been abducted!_ For those who have experienced SP and HH hallucinations and who place themselves in the hands of the AA believers, their major reason for doing so is because, they too, believe they must have been abducted. If they were not already entertaining such a belief why would they seek help from the likes of non-professionals like Budd Hopkins, an artist, or David Jacobs, a History professor or deliberately seek out therapists like Dr. John Mack, Edith Fiore, Irma Laibow, et.al., who have publicaly announced they believe UFO abductions are real and who have developed a reputation for treating those who believe they have been abducted? In Dr. Mack's own words, "I will usually start (treatment) with a review of the circumstances that caused them to contact me at this time. We examine the experiences and feelings that make them suspect that they have been abducted, such as the missing time episodes, a history of unexplained lights or beings in their immediate surroundings, unusual dreams or nightmares that seem abduction-related, or powerfully affecting close sightings of strange craft." (Mack, 1992) Once the alleged abductee is in the believer's hands the process of legitimizing the abduction begins, most often with regressive hypnosis. What is of particular interest here is that, in most of the cases involving the use of hypnosis the client is told or is lead to believe (or in many instances is asked _ahead of time_) some of the details or particulars concerning the abduction. It is these details and particulars that are reinforced, enhanced and elaborated upon via suggestion during the ensuing hypnotic interview in which an elaborate AA _production_ is created by the hypnotist and the eagerly cooperative and highly suggestible client. Dr, Martin Reiser, a psychologist and hypnosis consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department, viewed videotapes of Budd Hopkins interviewing a subject under hypnosis and Reiser concluded that Hopkins was telling the subjects ahead of time that abductions happen, that they are very common, and that there is no question that alien abductors do exist. Hopkin's response was, "Well, these cases are so outrageous and the person feels so uncomfortable talking about them that, unless you assure the person by your manner that you believe them, you will not get the story." Reisler responded, "I think much of what was felt and perceived by these two subjects could be explained in rational reasonable ways that don't involve UFOs or UFO experiences." In describing his own use of hypnotic regression, Dr. Mack states, "Initially, my technique was to determine in advance with the abductee which abduction experience(s) would be targeted in the session." (Mack, 1992). There is no doubt whatsoever here, in either the mind of the hypnotist or the mind of the person being regressed as to whether an abduction did or did not occur. This is well assured and agreed upon by both parties before the hypnosis begins. As Dr. Mack continues, "Having learned _in advance of the details_ surrounding the particular abduction experience being targeted, I ask the experiencer to go back to the time in question and, when he is ready, to begin the narrative of that night, automobile trip, or whatever other circumstance obtained when the abduction began." (Mack, 1992). In such a "believing" and "highly suggestive" atmosphere using the powerful suggestive technique called "hypnosis", under the influence of a prestigious, demanding, and charismatic "believer" who is piling suggestion atop suggestion onto the relaxed and compliant victim, it would be a miracle indeed if anyone would do anything other than agree "Yes, oh yes! I was--I must have been--abducted by aliens!" One can also be very certain that a tremendous amount of social reinforcement and support follows the admission of not only being a victim but having the details of one's abduction dovetail with those of previous victims. Even if the hypnotist makes a maximum conscious effort not to "put words into the client's mouth or images into his or her head" (which considering the lack of hypnotic training and skill is highly unlikely, beside the strong motive to confirm one's beliefs) it will be done away. As a result, _it can be safely said that every case of alien abduction involving the use of hypnosis is iatrogenic, i.e., caused by the hypnotist himself._ As for those cases that the AA believers present in which no hypnosis was involved, they are most likely the result of a highly suggestible (Baker, 1990), imaginal (Ring, 1992), or a fantasy-prone (Wilson and Barber, 1983, Basterfield and Bartholomew, 1988, Rhue and Lynn, 1987) personality type falling prey to the highly influential media and misinterpreting their SP and HH hallucination as another legendary UFO abduction. There is, however, another possibility--someone who is lying and seeking attention and notoriety and, of course, money. There is no quicker way of drawing a crowd than to claim a UFO abduction. Iatrogenesis For those AA believers who would question iatrogenesis, i.e., the creation and shaping of the disorder by the therapist, as the most plausible explanation for the proliferation of the AA syndrome, a recent paper by the Canadian psychiatrist Merskey is of considerable significance and relevance. Like alien abductions which began in our time with the case of Betty and Barney Hill in the 1950s, cases of multiple personality disorder (MPD) have been diagnosed in unprecedented numbers, mainly in North America, since 1957. Because of the widespread publicity surrounding the concept, it is doubtful that any case of MPD can now arise that is not specifically promoted by suggestion or prior preperation by a therapist. To determine if MPD was ever a spontaneous phenomenon, Merskey examined in detail case after case reported in the early literature giving particular attention to alternative diagnoses that could account for the phenomena as well as to the specific ways in which the first alternate personality emerged. The earlier cases involved amnesia, striking fluctuations in mood, and are dealing with hysteria, to mistake it for something else...As a cirr sometimes cerebral organic disorder. The secondary personalities frequently appeared following hypnosis and several amnesiac patients were specifically trained to come up with new identities. Many others showed overt iatrogenesis. None of the reports fully excluded the possibility of artificial production. Merskey concludes his long and careful review with the statement that the diagnosis of MPD today represents a total misdirection of thera peutic effort and this misdirection seriously hinders the resolution of serious psychological problems in the lives of patients. Dr. Paul R. McHugh of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine emphatically agrees. In his words, "Just as the divines of Massachusetts were convinced they were fighting Satan by recognizing bewitchment, so the contemporary divines--these are the therapists--are confident that they are fighting perpetrators of a common expression of sexual oppression, child abuse, by recognizing MPD. The incidence of MPD has of late taken on epidemic proportions, particularly in certain treatment centers. Whereas its diagnosis was reported less than two hundred times from a variety of supposed causes in the last century, it has been appled to more than 20,000 people in the last decade and largely attributed to sexual abuse....the proper approach to end epidmics of MPD and the assumptions of a vast prevalence of sexual abuse in ordinary families is for sychiatrists to be aware of the potential, whenever we are dealing with hysteria, to mistake it for something else...As a corrective, psychiatrists need only review with a patient how the MPD behavior was diagnosed and how the putative memories of sexual abuse were suggested. These practices will eventually be discredited, and this epidemic will end in the same way that the witch trials ended in Salem....Major psychiatria misdirections often share this intimidating mixture of a medical mistake lashed to a trendy idea. Any challenge to such a misdirection must confront simultaneously the professional authority of the proponents and the political power of fashionable convictions." (McHugh, 1992, pgs. 507-509). In 1984 Dr. C.H. Thigpen, who along with Dr. H.M. Cleckley wrote _The Three Faces of Eve_, one of the first popular accounts of MPD, reported that over the 25 years following their book hundreds of patients were sent to them by therapists who had diagnosed them as MPDs and by others who were self-diagnosed. Of all these cases Thigpen and Cleckley found only one that was "undeniably a genuine multiple personality." (Thigpen, 1984) Experienced therapists well know that medical diagnosis is both heuristic and variable (Merskey, 1986) and that some diagnoses are preferable to others because the presenting symptoms appear to originate undependently of either the doctor or of social demands, or because they lead to more success in prognosis or because they are the best guides to treatment. In Merskey's words, "They (diagnoses) may be influenced by psychological factors or by social expectations, whether we are talking about cancer pain, endogenous depression, or post-traumatic-stress disorder. However, it is reasonable to reject those diagnoses which most reflect individual choice, conscious role-playing, and personal convenience in problem-solving, provided we have alternatives which are less trouble intellectually, and at least as practical socially and therapeutically, and not morally objectionable. Hence I am evaluating MPD as a diagnosis with the implicit view that certain other diagnoses are acceptable alternatives: mania, certain depressive illnesses, schizophrenia, obsessional neurosis, and even some conversion or dissociative symtoms arise in very many cases of MPD, without medical induction or social facilitation...Some authors have already maintained that MPD is produced by the interest of doctors and others." (pg. 329) Upon completing his exhaustive review of all of the most publicized cases, Merskey reports, "No case has been found here in which MPD, as now conceived, is proven to have emerged through unconscious processes without any shaping or preperation by external factors such as physicians or the media. In respect of this argument, we may have reached a situation comparable to Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty: observation of the phenomena changes it. If this is true it means that no later case, probably since Prince, but at least since the film _The Three Faces of Eve_, can be taken to be veridical since none is likely to emerge without prior knowledge of the idea. (Merskey, 1992, pg. 337) Similarly, as in the case of the alleged alien abductions it means that no case probably since the Betty Hill claim (and at least since the film _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_) can be taken to be veridical since none has likely emerged without prior knowledge of the idea. Merskey also adds, "It is likely that MPD never occurs as a spontaneous persistent event in adults. The cases examined here have not shown any original conditions which are more autonomous than a fugue or a second identity promoted by overt fantasies or conscious awareness. The most that may be expected without iatrogenesis is that an overt inclination for another role could cause the adoption of different conscious patterns of life...Without reinforcement, such secondary changes would ordinarily be expected to vanish. Suggestion, social encouragement, preperation by expectation, and the reward of attention can produce and sustain a second personality. Admittedly, if only those physicians who expect the disorder can see it, those who do not believe in it cannot see it. However, like others, I was willing to entertain its existence and never found it myself before the dramatic rise in reported cases or since. Meanwhile it is not necessary to treat patients who have had terrible childhoods and who have conversion symptoms, by developing in them an additional belief in fresh personalities. Enthusiasm for the phenomenon is a means of increasing it. (Merskey, 1992, pg. 337) These two paragraphs could just as well have been written referring to the AA syndrome instead of the production of multiple personalities. Quite clearly, suggestion, social encouragement, preparation by expection and the reward of attention can produce and sustain the belief in an alien abduction. Moreover, physicians and therapists who believe in and expect the disorder can see it, those who do not believe in it cannot see it. And, most certainly, enthusiasm for the AA phenomenon is surely a means of increasing it! Finally, in considering how patients, doctors and other therapists, come to believe in MPD or to present the popular pattern, Merskey offers four explanations as to how MPD is created: first, is the misinterpretation of organic or bipolar illness; second, is the conscious development of fantasies as a solution to emotional problems; third, is the development of hysterical amnesia, followed by retraining by the therapist; fourth, is the creation by implicit demand of alters under hypnosis or by repeated interviews. In similar fashion--with the possible exception of any sort of organic illness and this possibility cannot be totally excluded--so is created the popular pattern of alien abductions that so many credulous therapists believe in: first, is the misinterpretation of the SP and HH syndrome; second, is the conscious development of fantasies of abduction and rape as a solution to emotional problems(In female abductees some of these emotional problems may well involve guilt and/or grief over abortions as Dennis Stacy has suggested); third, is the development of hysterical amnesia and post- traumatic-stress disorder symptoms followed by retraining by the therapist to insure the client provides the proper script complete with all of the AA symptoms; and fourth, the creation of a credible AA scenario by implicit demand under hypnosis or as a result of shaping in repeated interviews. It is highly unlikely today that any case of alleged AA could possibly have escaped the pervasive influence of the media or iatrogenesis. If any such cases do exist the burden of proof rests upon the shoulders of the claimants: the victim and their therapist. Merskey concludes that the diagnosis of MPD may not give the best treatment nor is it helped by such an extraneous and exciting diagnosis. ANother ill effect, he notes, is that the value and good sense of psychiatry becomes suspect as wonders multiply. These words are even truer and more applicable in the case of AA claims made by native therapists. MISSING TIME With regard to "missing time" experiences it is regrettable that the Roper surveyers did not restrict their questions about "lost time" to a population made up exclusively of long distance truck drivers. Had they done so the number of those answering affirmatively to the questions about missing time would have approached 100 percent. Nearly every driver we have ever heard of or talked with had reported this "sleeping wakefullness", blanking out", or "lost time" experience. Periods of amnesia or forgetfulness while driving are a familiar experience to nearly everyone--especially to drivers who travel long distances over familiar routes. Williams (1963) reports on one case in which a woman driver had so many periods of amnesia while driving in New Jersey that she sough psychiatric help. She could remember stopping at traffic lights in the town preceding the one she was then in, but could recall nothing in between. Due to repeated experiences of this sort in which she could recall nothing of what had happened over stretches of 25 or 30 miles or more, and sometimes as long as an hour or two, she feared she was suffering from some sort of emotional instability. The _missing time phenomenon_ is really very common and is not restricted to automobile or truck drivers. Automobile passengers also report this sort of experience, but their actions are more likely to pass unnoticed than those of the driver. Alternate drivers on long-distance trucking teams frequently report that their alternates sometime appear to be in a daze and operating the vehicle more or less mechanically. This, along with the driver's glass stare is a sure sign it is time to switch drivers. Long distance drivers and airline pilots suffer from these periods of "missing time" quite frequently. One long hauler reported: "I discovered this fact (amnesia) while driving at night from Portland, Oregon, to San Francisco, California. The lights of a town approached and I realized that I had been in an almost asleep condition for about 25 miles. Inasmuch as I knew the road I had traveled was not straight, it was apparent that I had negotiated the road, making all the turns, etc..I did not remember the stretch of road at all. I purposely tried it several times after that and found that I could drive miles and miles without memory of it, and while resting. In each case whenever any driving emergency appeared, I became fully awake." (Williams, 1963) It is difficult enough when driving with somebody else, but even more difficult when driving alone. As one solitary traveller reported: "I have noticed whenever I make a trip to New York City via the Merritt Parkway (Connecticut) that in spite of a good night's rest, I have to fight off going into a trance...I have observed also that if I go to New York City via the Boston Turnpike which passes through many towns, I always find the trip interesting and am never in danger of a monotonous drive...as well as I can recall, the only times the monotony of driving on a road like the Merritt Parkway has affected me have been when I am driving alone. (Williams, 1963) The trance and missin gtime experience also seem to occur under two other conditions: first, when drivers are forced to follow trucks or other large vehicles for considerable distances; and second, when they drive at night and their range of vision is restricted to the area o fthe headlight beams. Reed, in his _Psychology Of Anomolous Experience_ (1974) discussed this missing time experience at length and explained it in terms of the level of mental organization or schematization required by a situation. While the task of driving a car is itself highly skilled, its component activities are all overlearned and habitual to the experienced driver. Steering, shifting gears, giving signals, etc., all become automatic acts which do not require focused, conscious attention. Furthermore, our experience of time and its passage is determined by events--either internal or external. When a person reports a "time gap" he is not saying that a piece of time has disappeared but that he failed to register a number of _events that normally serve as time markers_. The experience that is reported and that actually seems so strange is actually 'waking up" when one is already awake and being aware of a blank period in his recent past. Since most of us live our lives by the clock such that certain habits take place at certain times, we are disturbed when we find we have missed a period of time. A driver wakes up in New York and realizes that he remembers nothing since Boston. ALthough the driver describes his experience in terms of time, he could just as well describe in in terms of _distance_, or even more accurately in terms of _events_, i.e., in terms of, in this case, the _absence of events_. Even though there were events during the missing time, none of them had any alerting significance. The time gap is experienced when no events of significance occur, e.g., there is nothing unusual about the traffic, there is clear visibility and smooth unchanging road surface, there are no warning signs, and the demands of the driving tasks are few and unchanging. Moreover, when we learn and master a complex skill like walking or talking or driving a car, once we have perfected each component of the skill its performance becomes automatic, in the sense that we can withdraw our attention from this level and focus on the next higher level. We do, however, have to attend to ways in which basic skills like driving must be organized in response to environmental demands--particularly when the demands are stressful or unfamiliar. The skilled tennis player cannot relax his concentration because his opponent will continually be introducing changes in the environment. No matter how automatic his stroke or eye-hand coordination may be, he must still stay alert. But if all we are required to do is walk along a lonely beach for miles, we can do it and never notice or know that we are doing it. It is possible to do two things at once as long as one of the activities is automatic and does not require focused attention. We do a lot of things without thinking, reflexively, as when a child suddenly and without warning darts in fron tof our car. We hit the brakes and stop the car without thinking. The driver realizes that he has been driving _automatically_ when the situation does change and events demanding his active attention "wake him up." He hits the brake suddenly without thought. Or as he gets closer to New York City, traffic increases, sirens intrude, highway signs appear, and the driver's automatic routines are now inadequate--he must reorganize his skills and pay attention to the rapid changing conditions. When he "wakes up" he realizes that, among other things, he is now in New York before he supposes he should be. As Reed says, "In one sense he is correct in describing what has happened as a "gap". But the gap is not in time, but in alertness or his high level of conscious attention." (Reed, 1974, pg.20). In short, the experience of missing time is best considered in terms of the absence of events. Most of the time we cannot remember what took place simply because nothing of any importance occurred. Singer, in his _Inner World of Daydreams_ (1975), points out that the missing time experience is quite ordinary, common, and universal and is not merely restricted to driving on an interstate highway. He asks, "Are there ever any truly 'blank periods' when we are awake? It certainly seems to be the case that under certain conditions of fatigue or great drowsiness or extreme concentration upon some physical act we may become aware that we cannot account for an interval of time and have no memory of what happened for seconds and sometimes minutes." (Singer, 1975) With regard to falling asleep and dreaming unless we program ourselves ahead of time to remember our dreams, they disappear into thin air as soon as we realize that morning and a busy day is upon us. If they are particularly annoying, anxiety arousing, or frightening then we may recall the emotional upset but may be very hazy about the specific details. In the event of an SP and HH experience, however, there is no difficulty at all in recall. The more one reflects upon the missing time experience and its correlates and the circumstances surrounding its occurance, the clearer it becomes that it is a normal, everyday, and ordinary mental event that has nothing whatsoever to do with either UFOs, or alien abductions. The fact that one has a missing time experience and after either a hypnotic and brainwashing session of suggestion and then associates the "missing time" with an AA in no way either substantiates or authenticates such a claim. Not only are our daydreams as difficult to recall as our nightmares but also their content and the total amount of time we devote to them are--in most instances for most of us--forever beyond recall. Where oh where did all this "missing time" go? ABRASIONS, SCRAPES, SCABS, SCARS, AND BRUISES According to the AA believers, "The patient may also have one or two unexplained scars on the legs--or occasionally on the upper body--which he or she feels are the result of these quasi-medical examinations." Moreover, these puzzling scars take the forms of a characteristic "scoop mark or straight-line cuts" and the abductees feel very uneasy about the origins of these marks. The alleged reason for the uneasiness is that neither the abductee or any one else remembers how they received them or where they came from. According to the Bigelow report results this totals 14,800,000 people who made this claim. What is surprising is that the total is not larger or even 100 percent of the sampled population since everyone who examines their body carefully at any given time will, invariably, discover one or more abrasions, scrapes, scabs, scars, or bruises they are at a loss to explain. If you doubt this examine your body, carefully, in a full length mirror or else have your spuse do do. COncerning the so-called characteristic scoop mark or straight-line cut what would be most helpful in this regard are some photographs of these typical wounds. To my knowledge no such photographs have been made public nor has any of these alleged wounds been inspected by a licensed dermatologist or forensic expert who might be able to determine what sort of instrument, if any, made these incisions. What is much more likely is that the 14,800,000 people who responded affirmatively to the question _were not claiming that the puzzling scrapes, scabs, scars, and bruises they discovered on their bodies were either scoop marks or straight-line cuts_. Allegations of "peculiar incisions, needle marks, triangular bruises, and scoop-like scars of unknown origin seem to add further 'evidence' as to the existence of some kind of anomalous event." (pg.53) Accompanying such claims is the statement that children are "actually found absent from their cribs, dazed in a nearby field, or outside of the bolt-locked home at night." Unfortunately, there is no documentation of any sort to support these sensationalistic claims nor any reference to the efforts of local law enforcement personnel or FBI personnel to validate or deal with such crimes. In the same vein we are also barraged with further unsupported and undocumented claims that many people "have actually witnessed an abduction occurring--observing the beam of light engulfing the individual, watching someone floating out his window, and witnessing the existence of small beings as well. With multiple witnesses, documented absences, correlating wounds and perfectly-round scorched areas of earth, the phenomenon becomes much more than mythical or imaginary." Where, pray tell, is the documentation for all these hysterical claims? Where are these witnesses? Who are these people making such claims? Where is the proof of such stupendous, mind-boggling, earth-shaking, science-challenging claims? Where oh where? MISCELLANEOUS SHORTCOMINGS OF THE AA SCENARIO Thoughtful readers of the AA literature must have some while ago begun to take with a grain of salt many of the published statements of some of the AA proponents. For example, according to Dr. John Mack, alien abductions are not only common but they are increasing in number. In his words, "hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American men, women, and children may have experienced UFO abductions, or abduction-related phenomena." What is puzzling about this statement is the fact that supposedly educated and trained therapists seem to believe it. For the aliens to carry out a logistical operation of this magnitude, any night in the year when we would happen to step outside and look up, we could not help but see hundreds of UFO spaceships flitting back and forth like fireflies. Pictures of human and inhuman bodies shuttling back and forth from spaceship to bedroom and vice versa in broad daylight would fill not only the checkout-counter newspapers but the pages of the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post as well. Dennis Stacy, editor of the MUFON monthly UFO journal, has also questioned Mack's statistics and in the September 1992 issue of _Fate_ magazine noted: "The claim that almost four million Americans alone have been physically abducted in, say even the last 50 years clearly boggles common sense, not to mention the otherwise unencumbered imagination. And remember, this is only the potential number of individuals theoretically abducted: since some abductees report several repeat experiences, the total number of actual abductions, assuming that is what is involved, could easily be two, three, or four times that amount. Moreover, these numbers apply only to a target American population of 185 million. If we are to assume that one in every 50 people with a population of several billion has actually been abducted at one time or another, we are now looking at a potential body count of some several hundred millions. The logistics of an ongoing extraterrestial invasion on that kind of scale simply won't compute." (pg. 65) When properly used statistics can clarify and illuminate but when used carelessly without forethought they merely obfuscate and cinfuse and serve as tools of propaganda to promote some end. Mack's particular use is an excellent example of what Paulos calls "innumeracy." As for the aliens physical appearance, it is highly improbable that they exist as they have been descired in their little gray homonid form. In a fascinating paper concerned with the human tendency to project human qualities upon the external world Coffey (1992) reminds us that not only is there no incontrovertible evidence whatsoever that aliens exist, but evolution itself is not the ineluctable following of physical laws but, instead, is merely a chain of contingent events, which easily could have been otherwise. Change any one of the many past events in our biological history which is a cascade effect and it will dramatically influence everything that follows. If, by some cruel stroke the chordates had failed to survive millions of years ago then neither verterbrates, nor mammals, nor ourselves would have ever evolved; we simply would not be here now. The Burgess shale fossils, representing a time just after the Cambrian explosion 570 million years ago completely refute the anthropomorphic idea that diversity increased with time. Instead, the evolutionary pattern shows rapid diversification followd by decimation with perhaps as few as 5% surviving. In Coffey's words, "The survivors resemble the winners of a lottery rather than creatures better designed than the unlucky majority who do not survive." Steven Gould (1990) not only concurs, but points out that if we were to replay life's tape there is no reason whatsoever to assume that our particular type of self-conscious being would ever be expected to appear again. As Gould notes, our evolution is not a repeatable occurance. If anything, we are the embodiment of contingency. What this means is that it is so highly improbable as to approach impossibility that there is any humanoid intelligence of any sort--albeit housed in different bodily frames--to be found anywhere else in the cosmos. Coffey sums up quite succinctly our anthropomorphic fallacy: "The evolutionary conclusion that humanoid intelligence elsewhere is improbably is not due to any anthropomorphic bias but because of the deep understanding that evolution has no real goal other than adapting creatures to specific local environments. Neither we, nor our mode of intelligence, are the highpoint of evolution. The pathways of evolution are too circuitous for that ever to be the case." (pg. 28) Little gray homonids who bear a marked resemblance to human fetuses but who are able to communicate telepathically? Dragons and fairies are equally, if not more, probable. If the aliens came from any space at all it is from "inner" rather than "outer." It is also high time that we realize that all our scenarios of extraterrestial life from those of SETI supporters to those of the Star Trek series are all _nothing but projections of ourselves_! If, as the AA believers insist, the aliens and alien-technology are in our midst why would NASA be aiming their very costly radio telescopes at the stars? According to Coffey, the hope for finding human intelligence elsewhere is a religious conviction. In his words, "It is religious in that it rests upon faith not a rational comprehension of the message the evolutionary record cries out to us: of humans elsewhere there will be none forever." As for believers in alien abductions perhaps their convictions are also religious and are motivated by the same forces that inspire the SETI scientists. Whatever these forces may be they make up the real mystery surrounding the entire phenomena of UFOs, alien abductions, beliefs in alternate realities, and so on. Why, it is important to ask, would so many educated and credentialed individuals in the mental health field ignore their scientific training and clinical experience to authenticate the anxieties of the SP and HH hallucinations victims? Why have they forgotten the cardinal principle of therapy: _first do no harm_? Their rationalization that whether the abductions are _true_ (and they insist they are) or false is of little matter since they must treat the client's _belief_ that he or she was abducted--will not hold water. The belief that one was abducted when reinforced and confirmed by the therapist not only causes an increase in panic and anxiety (because they are now left exposed and totally helpless to prevent further abductions) but aggravates the original trauma. If there was even a smidgen of doubt as to the reality of their prior experience, the therapist's authentication of an abduction removes all traces of conjecture. As a result, the hapless client is now quite likely to have new nightmares about his previous experience. Moreover, the client is now absolutely certain that his SP and HH syndrome was an honest-to-God abduction! Elevating the vicitm's anxiety level is no conceivable way therapeutic! A few weeks ago I was contacted by one of Hopkins' clients who could not understand why I doubted Hopkins' belief in the abduction delusion. He was quite upset because I challenged the reality of his experience. After he had the original and very powerful fear emotions revived, reinstated, and then reinforced by Hopkins' hypnotic ministations, he was now totally convinced his alien contact was real. His last angry letter assured me that I was the one who was crazy. "You were not there! It didn't happen to you! You just don't know! I know what is real and what is not real!" The point that every victim of the SP and HH syndrome invariably seem to miss is: _that if it didn't seem to be real it wouldn't be an hallucination_! Another very serious shortcoming in the AA scenario has been noted by Dan Wright, MUFON's Deputy Director of Investigations (1992). According to Wright, "By a fair reading of MUFON's case files, one would have to conclude that _abductions rarely occur_....In my 14-year association with MUFON, no aspect of the subject has had more significance than so-called 'abduction phenomena.' From an investigative standpoint, however, these are potentially the most widely mishandled investigations. And that is caused _solely_ by the utter secrecy of the self-appointed 'experts' handling these cases (pgs 10-11). Wright is most incensed, however, by the failure of the claimants to submit their abduction findings to outside experts for independent analysis. In Wright's words, "Authority without responsibility. Ah, if life could be so sweet for us all!" Wright further criticizes the abductologists on their failure: 1) to determine the credibility of their witnesses; 2) their failure to check the validity of their claims with police, neighbors, friends,a nd so on; 3) their failure to report the verbatim questions and replies obtained under hypnosis; 4) their failure to insure the qualifications and training of the hypnotist; and 5) their failure to follow reasonable scientific guidelines for enabling others to understand the origins and purposes of any alleged alien intelligence. Wright does not buy their argument that their sole purpose is to help abductees through a traumatic period in their lives. Maganimous and commendable though such altruism may be, it is no excuse for thier shoddy and unscientific behavior. This, of course, raises another mystery: Why have the AA believers been so reluctant to be candid and open? Certainly, Dr. John Mack has been quite candid and open with regard to his therapeutic approach in helping alleged abductees. One of his more interesting techniques is that he calls "the breathwork technique", a technique he says he learned with Stanislay and Christina Grof. According to Dr. Mack: "The breathwork enables us to move into and through the affectively disturbing places and to work with energies and resistances which are held in the body. I explain at the beginning the importance of the breath and of breathing to the work. I tell the person about the breath, that it goves him power and connects him to the life giving forces of the cosmos. Early in the relaxation process I ask the individual to establish a deeper than normal, full slow rhythmic breathing pattern and bring him back to his breathing again and again." (Mack, "Helping Abductees," IUR July/August, 1992, pg. 14) What is particularly curious about his technique is that dyspnea so often accompanies and is an integral part of hte SP and HH syndrome. The pressure on the chest, the difficulty in breathing, and so on, clearly indicates that Mack is sensitive to such complaints on the part of his abductee clients. It also further strengthens the link between the so-called abductions and the SP and HH syndrome. Also noteworthy is hte recent report by Basterfield (1992) in which a normal, healthy Australian housewife experienced a classical AA experience -- two decades ago -- in which the abductor was a man-like entity with long blond hair and he was dressed in a white ski suit. As Basterfield says, what is significant about this report is that "a witness of impeccable character was apparently subjected to an escalating sequence of events terminating with an abduction, then a visitation a week later. During this abduction she never physically left the presence of two UFO researchers who were sitting next to her." Although it could be argued this was not a "true" abduction, Basterfield stresses that it passes all four criteria of the Center For UFO Studies (CCUFOS) definition of an abduction. This also invalidates David Jacob's remarks that "in the abduction phenomenon abductees are never physically in place when they have an abduction experience...Researchers have not collected a single csae of an abduction in which the victim was actually in a normal location while the abduction was occurring." There should be little doubt but that Basterfield's case is just one more example which attests to the true _psychological_ nature of hte AA syndrome. Concerning the many and various claims made by the AA believers as to the material evidence left behind by the elusive aliens, these notorious physical artifacts are very hard to come by. Curiously enough some while ago Jerry Clark, Vice President of CUFOS and Don Schmitt, CUFOS Director of Special Investigations, took a trip into the wilds of rural Illinois to inspect that rarest of rare finds: an extraterrestial implant. A man claiming to be an abductee reported that at one point his abductors stuck a small implant up his nose (presumably _en route_ to the brain). A few nights after one of his abduction experiences his car struck a bridge and he was thrown through the windshield. At the hospital his skull was X-rayed to check for injuries. Shortly after this accident the man caught a serious cold, and as he was blowing his nose he felt something emerge. It proved to be a strange sperical object which looked like the one the aliens had placed in his head. After meeting the man where he said he would be Clark and Scmitt engaged in pleasantries for two or three minutes and then he unwrapped his present. In Clark's words, "Don and I stared at it incredulously. _It was a ball bearing._ At that point, of course, it was difficult for the two of us to keep our faces straight. But soon curiosity set in, and we spent the next hour or so hearing the man's story, all the while wondering if he realized that his tales of alien encounters in the face of manifestly bogus evidence made him look ridiculous...No such luck. He looked and sounded sincere, and he mentioned other persons who could confirm aspects of his experience." (Clark, April, 1992, pg. 20) Clark and Schmitt also had the man's X-rays sent to them becuase if there was an alien implant or a human ball bearing it should show up. When the X-rays arrived and wereinspected they showed nothing out of the ordinary. This story is exemplary in that it shows how easy it is for many seemingly ordinary and stable people to create, harbor, and maintain a bizarre but status-enhancing delusion. As for all of the reputed implants, stolen fetuses, unexplained pregnancies, metallic pieces of unearthly aircraft et.al., none of these artifacts are available for public inspection and none of the exogenous conceptions have ever been authenticated by any reputable physician or have ever been reported in any reputable medical or scientific journal. As for the alien's reputed transportation system this is equally nebulous and if the UFO spacecraft have the performance characteristics described in numerous reports they are unique indeed in that they defy the known laws of physics although these laws seem to hold in all parts of the known universe (Merkowitz, 1967) When one takes a close, careful, and hard look at the entire AA scenario one finds not only hundreds of unanswered factual questions, countless logical flaws, reams of unsupported claims, piece after missing piece of "supposed" material confirmatory evidence, no unimpeachable photographic evidence, no abduction attested to by multiple witnesses, and nothing whatsoever to contradict the evidence that the reported alien encounters were anything more than the SP and HH syndrome, delusions, or a deliberate hoax. Why are images of little gray men showing up in the hallucinations of the American populace when such images in the Nordic countries are of golden-haired humans and Italy are of reptilian beasts?? Our aliens are, of course, straight out of the final scenes of _Close Encounters Of The Third Kind_ and off the cover of _Communion_, images that literally thousands of American men, women, and children have seen over and over. In every way, the description of the aliens and their robot-like behavior now trotted out before us by Hopkins, Jacobs, Bullard, Streiber, Mack and the rest are more like carefully orchestrated _theatrical productions_ rather than anything else. All of the alien abductologist's work is carefully scripted to produce the maximum amount of awe, fright, and mytification with the minimal amount of clarification and explanation. They, in every way, support what Eddy Clonts, editor of the supermarket tabloid _Weekly World News_ said recently, "Everybody else is trying to demystify everything. We're trying to do the opposite, to mysify them." If the AA believer's aim was to create a mind-boggling and stupendous mystery out of a common but not well known sleep disorder, they have succeeded admirably. They have, indeed, with the media's help, produced a winner! SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Whether intentional or not, the entire AA scenario is an elaborately staged hoax -- a production dumped upon the American scene by a naive and credulous group of sensationalistic-minded zealots and misguided psychotherapists who should know better. Acting in the name of altruism and aided and abetted by an enthusiatic and uncritical media, these alarmists have not only created a full-blown neurosis in many people suffering from a fairly common sleep disorder, but they have also raised the anxiety level of an alreadt beleaguered and overstressed populace. Acting in the name of beneficence and good citizenship, they have succeeded in doing considerable harm and have, in the process, not only managed to discredit sceince and medicine but psychology and psychiatry as well. Such _alien productions_ disguised in the name of _alien abductions_ are, indeed, as Philip Klass aptly phrased it some years ago (1989) "a dangerous game," a game that no one who is _truly_ concerned about the welfare of others would ever want to play. Robert A. Baker Lexington, KY October 1992 REFERENCES 1. Assad, Ghazi. 1990. _Hallucinations In Clinical Psychiatry_, Brunner/Mazel, NY. 2. 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Schneck, J.M. 1971. "Sleep Paralysis in F. Scott Fitzgerald's _The Beautiful And Damned_," _N.Y. State J. Medicine 71_, pgs. 378-379. 32. Siegel, Ronald K. 1992. _Fire in the Brain: Clinical Tales of Hallucunation_ Dutton 33. Singer, Jerome. 1975 _Inner World of Daydreaming_, Harper & Row, NY. 34. Sours, J.A. 1963. "Narcolepsy and Other Disturbances In the Sleep-Waking Rhythm," _J. Nerv. & Ment. Diseases 137_, pgs. 525-542. 35. Stacy, Dennis. 1992 "Millions of Americans Abducted?" FATE Magazine, September 1992, pgs. 60-67. 36. Stern, Max M. 1961. "Blank Hallucinations: Remarks About Trauma and Perceptual Disturbances," _Int. J. Psychoanalysis 42_, pgs. 205-215. 37. Straub, Peter. 1979, _Ghost Story_. Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, NY. 38. Strieber, Whitley. 1987. _Communion: A True Story_ Beechtree Books, William Morrow, NY. 39. Strieber, Whitley, 1988 _Transformation: The Breakthrough_, William Morrow, NY. 40. Thigpen, C.H. 1984. "On the Incidence of Multiple Personality: A Brief Communication," _Intl. J. of Clin. Experimental Hypnosis 32_ pgs. 63-66. 41. Thigpen, C.H. and Cleckly H.M. 1957 _The Three Faces of Eve_ McGraw-Hill, NY. 42. Williams, G.W. 1963. "Highway Hypnosis: An Hypothesis," _Intl. J. Clin Exper. Hypnosis 11_ pgs. 143-151 43. Wilson, S.C. and Barber, T.X. 1983. "The Fantasy Prone Personality: Implications for Understanding Imagery, Hypnosis, and Parapsychological Phenomena," in _Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application_, ed. by A.A. Sheikh, John Wiley & Sons, NY. 44. Wright, Dan. 1992. "Abductions: Our Dirty Secret," MUFON UFO Journal, No. 287, March 1992, pgs. 10-11. <<<<< END >>>>> ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************