Audiobook of this old ufo book,
Classic from more than 40 years ago,
MISSING TIME, 

A Documented Study 
of UFO Abductions, 

by Budd Hopkins. 

Numbers read, seemingly out of connection, can be footnotes.
This book is also translated to Norwegian, and can be found by searching on author or title, ufo-tapte timer, inside nasjonalbiblioteket.no.

Foreword to audiobook here. This book, along with many others, shows how widespread these genetic thefts have been for more than 50 years here. And it becomes extra serious when we today, in 2022, almost half a century since this book was written, know that this activity with genetic loans, was approved by secret groups in the US government at the time, as well as in the military there. This as a means of exchange for advanced technology that the arms industry in particular was looking for. And this has probably been the reason why the UFO case in general has been made a non-issue in general, and everything has been done to keep it secret, to ridicule it all. Among other things, because this traffic with genetic loans or genetic thefts, has occurred without the so-called democratic approval. Here, parts of the same power apparatus have sold out their own population, in exchange for the promised advanced technology.
Here in this book we get a little insight into the extensive kidnapping that has taken place over more than half a century worldwide, but primarily in the United States, where the agreement with the "gray" race took place.
End of foreword in this audio book.

INTRODUCTION.


Since World War 2, tens of thousands of reports of unidentified flying objects have been gathered, officially and unofficially, 
by the United States Air Force and myriad other governmental 
and civilian investigative organizations around the world. Like 
Astronaut McDivitt's "cylinder with antennas," these objects are 
often described as being mechanically structured, metallic, and 
very frequently as behaving as if they were under intelligent control. 
The thousands of similar, enigmatic reports from across the 
world mean that no matter what realities may lie behind it, the 
UFO phenomenon exists as an undeniable fact of life. 

The question, then, is what we should do about the disturbing 
mass of material, which makes up this ubiquitous phenomenon. 
There are two polar positions. One group, to which I and a large 
number of investigators, scientists, and even a few committed 
sceptics belong, believes that the UFO phenomenon poses a tantalizing 
and serious problem - perhaps a profoundly revolutionary 
one. If there is nothing but smoke to this mass of mysterious 
reports, then enormous numbers of people, from farmers to astronauts, 
must be hallucinating fire - which in itself would be an 
alarming state of affairs. The other group is made up of those who, 
out of lack of information or mere indifference, simply ignore the 
phenomenon. The first group looks into the data, the other declines 
to. Essentially, UFO "belief" is definable by whether or not 
one believes that the thousands of ongoing reports constitute a 
problem worth looking into, regardless of one's prejudices, theories, and assumptions. (And of these there are almost as many as 
there are investigators.) 

It has long been obvious to serious UFO researchers that the 
majority of UFO reports - some say up to ninety percent - are misidentifications 
of conventional aircraft, stars, and other natural or 
artificial objects. As an example, I received a phone call a few 
years ago from an agitated woman who had seen a UFO from her 
car as she drove on Manhattan's East River Drive. "It was a bright, 
hovering light," she told me, "much bigger than a star." She lost 
sight of it when a building blocked her view; then she saw it again, 
and then finally it was gone. It appeared not to be moving, and it 
was very close to the horizon. I asked about its location, and she 
said that it had been in the northeast. "Near La Guardia Airport?" 
I inquired. "Why, yes," she answered, "it would have been just 
about over La Guardia." As she spoke she realized why I had 
asked the question. Her "UFO" was undoubtedly a distant plane 
coming in with its landing lights on against a twilit sky, just far 
enough away for her eyes to blend the two bright lights together 
into one large one. Since the plane was pointed south, towards her 
car, it seemed to be hovering. 

Reports like these are common, and many investigators pay 
no attention to them at all apart from their obvious explanations. 
Even without its transparent cause, a report like this offers an 
unrewarding paucity of information in the best of circumstances. 
A number of scientists, naive about the complexity of the other 
UFO reports, assume that this sort of thing - an odd light in the 
night sky - is all there is to the phenomenon. Their ritual denigrations, 
Carl Sagan's, for instance, appear to be pro forma, akin to 
the similar scientific assurances we've heard about the safety of 
atomic energy and the ongoing flight of Skylab. Sagan wittily remarked 
that no one has produced "even a cocktail napkin" from a 
UFO. Another astronomer countered by asking, for that matter, 
how many Brazilian aborigines have a piece of a Boeing 747? 

But what about the "other ten percent," the UFO reports 
which remain unexplained after investigation? These are the detailed 
cases, like the 1964 Socorro, New Mexico, sighting which 
was investigated by officials from the White Sands proving 
grounds, the FBI, the Air Force, and the local police. In fact, the 
principal witness was a highly respected Socorro policeman. Officer 
Lonnie Zamora, on a sunny afternoon in April, was in his 
patrol car following a speeder when he heard a roar and saw a 
flame in the sky a half mile or so away. He turned away from his 
chase to investigate and saw a "motionless flame,    slowly descending. 
" Its "noise changed from high frequency to low frequency 
and then stopped." Zamora drove up a gravel road and 
saw a shiny oval object in a gully below. "It looked at first like a 
car turned upside down. Thought some kids might have turned it 
over. Saw two people in white coveralls very close to object. One 
of these persons seemed to turn and look straight at my car and 
seemed startled,   . Persons appeared normal in shape - but 
possibly they were small adults or large kids." 

Zamora radioed that he was investigating a possible accident 
when he heard another roar. His report, written a few hours after 
the incident in a kind of policeman's telegramese, continues: 

Stopped car, was still talking on radio, started to get out; mike 
fell down, reached back to pick up mike. As I got out of car, 
at scene area, I heard two or three loud thumps, like someone 
hammering or shutting door hard. These thumps were possibly a 
second or so apart.

As soon as saw Parnes and heard [second) roar, turned away, 
ran from object but did turn head towards object. Bumped leg on 
car, back fender area.  Object was oval in shape. It was 
smooth,  - no windows or doors,    like aluminium - white. 
Flame was under the object. Object starting to go straight up slowly 
, rose straight up. Thought, from roar, it might 
blow up. Kept running towards north with car between me and 
the object [for protection in case object exploded). I was scared of 
the roar. I turned around towards the ground, covering my face 
with my arms. When the roar stopped, heard nothing. It appeared 
to go at the same height and in a straight line, possibly ten to 
fifteen feet from the ground. Object was travelling very fast. It 
seemed to rise up and take off immediately cross-country. Got into 
the car and radioed to Ned Lopez, the radio operator, to 'look out 
of the window to see if you can see an object.' As I was calling 
Ned. the object seemed to lift up slowly and to get small in 
the distance very fast. It seemed to just clear Box Canyon or Simile 
Canyon Mountain. It disappeared as it went over the mountains. 
It had no Pame whatsoever as it was travelling over the 
ground and made no smoke or noise. 




Sergeant Chavez of the Socorro Police Department came on 
the scene moments later in response to Zamora's radio call. 
"When I arrived," the record reads, "Zamora was sweating and 
white,    very pale. I went down to where the object had been. I 
noticed the brush was burning in several places. I could see tracks 
on the ground. The object had left four perpendicular impressions 
in the ground. I noticed smouldering bushes, but they felt cold to 
the touch."3 Chavez later remarked to Dr. J. Allen Hynek, then the 
Air Force's scientific consultant on UFOs, that never in his long 
association with Zamora had he seen him in anything at all approaching 
the state he was in when Chavez joined him. Zamora is 
used to accidents, bloodshed, fights, and even murders. "We all 
seem to agree," said Dr. Hynek, who conducted a thorough investigation 
for the Air Force, "that Zamora saw something that really 
and truly frightened him." And it had been less than one hundred 
feet away. 

Subsequent investigation by the Air Force, which even included 
a fruitless search for propellant residue on the burnt 
bushes and a return trip by Dr. Hynek four months later, turned 
up nothing that would in any way discredit Zamora's account. The 
Air Force's final verdict? Like the UFO sightings by the astronauts 
mentioned earlier, the Socorro, New Mexico, landing is officially 
listed as unidentified. Carl Jung was right; things are being seen 
which defy explanation - close up and in bright daylight! 

Reports of figures, like Zamora's "small adults or large kids in 
white coveralls," seen in or near UFOs are surprisingly common. 
In fact, just about eleven hours before Zamora's encounter, a dairy 
farmer named Gary Wilcox of Tioga City, New York, saw what he 
took to be the wing tank from an airplane in one of his fields. He 
approached it and found that it was an oval, light - colored craft of 
some sort, resting on four strut like supports. And nearby he also 
saw two small men, roughly four feet tall, dressed in one - piece, 
apparently seamless coveralls. Researchers Ted Bloecher and David 
Webb have assembled in their data bank over fifteen hundred 
reports of such figures - "humanoids" - associated with UFOs and 
as we will see in the course of this book, most of these figures 
conform closely to a series of physical types, and have been reported 
by apparently reliable people.4 So close are the descriptions 
in these two cases that one wonders if Mr. Wilcox's visitors 
didn't leave upstate New York for a flight to New Mexico, where 
they encountered Officer Zamora later that afternoon. 

Whatever all this means, one thing is clear - a larger segment 
of the scientific community should certainly be joining the investigation 
of what may turn out to be a watershed event - the arrival 
of extraterrestrial visitors. No one can deny that this is possibly the 
correct explanation of the UFO phenomenon, and in 1948 the Air 
Force personnel charged with investigating UFO reports concluded 
in a top secret "Estimate of the Situation" that UFOs were 
of extraterrestrial origin.5 The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General 
Hoyt Vandenberg, received the report and decided that it 
lacked proof, but nevertheless it represented the considered opinion 
of the first official government investigation. 

It is ironic but true that the very possibility of an extraterrestrial 
cause works against scientific interest in the UFO phenomenon. 
All of our thinking, all of our boundaries are anthropomorphically 
determined. Science is based upon human intelligence 
dealing with the empirical world. The nature of other possibly 
"superior" but surely different intelligences studying us is literally 
ungraspable. The whole business, potentially, is nothing less than 
a second, more devastating Copernican revolution, and none of 
us, scientist or not, can ever truly be prepared for that. And, of 
course, anyone who wishes can deliberately ignore all the photographic 
evidence, the written reports and radar contacts, and so 
on, and simply take refuge in the fact that, so far as we know, the 
one piece of evidence we are lacking is the central one - we don't 
have a captured UFO parked somewhere as the final, invincible 
clincher, the corpus delicti. As a friend of mine once said to me, "I 
believe they're up there all right, but I won't be content till I kick 
the tires on one of them." 

Though there was a wave of sightings in the United States in 
1896 - 7, UFO reports in large numbers turn up for the first time 
during the last years of World War II.6 In fact, the American Air 
Force and the Luftwaffe each thought UFOs, which the American 
fliers called "foo - fighters," were the other side's secret weapon. 
The first modern wave of sightings in the United States occurred 
in 1947 and has been thoroughly documented by Ted Bloecher. 
Bloecher7 points out the interesting fact that many of the early 
witnesses automatically assumed that they had seen some kind of 
secret craft of terrestrial origin. References to "alien spacecraft" 



were often embellishments added by reporters who wished to start 
up their news stories. Typically, the witnesses would decide that 
the silvery disk, which had followed their car a few hundred feet 
away must have been a Russian secret weapon or some new kind 
of American craft, so they would dutifully report it as such to the 
Air Force. If they called the local paper, their account most likely 
would appear under the headline, "Couple Sights Martian Spaceship," 
ridicule being a particularly instinctive weapon in the 
hands of uneasy people. 

Over the decades, it became obvious that, whatever UFOs 
were, they were clearly not Russian or American or German advanced 
aircraft. The reports, which had a surprising consistency of 
detail, described craft, which could move silently at incredible 
speeds, stop almost instantly, and in general perform like nothing 
aerodynamic engineers on this planet could even imagine. Instead, 
earthly designers continue to concentrate on building noisy, 
expensive rocket or jet propulsion systems, one dead end of which 
seems to be the Concorde SST. Wars have been fought, invasions 
attempted, but no nation has come forward with the strategic edge 
that would be provided if anyone possessed aircraft with the performance 
capabilities of UFOs. 

In 1949 the Air Force intelligence group looking into the UFO 
problem hired Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer at Ohio State 
University, as their scientific consultant. Unofficially his task was 
to debunk the sighting reports which had grown to what the Air 
Force considered disturbing proportions. Dr. Hynek, who served 
the Air Force in this capacity for twenty years, was, so far as we 
know, privy to more official military UFO reports than any other 
scientist. His credentials are impeccable. He has directed the 
Dearborn Observatory and was Associate Director of the Smithsonian 
Astrophysical Observatory. He has been Chairman of the 
Astronomy Department at North-western University and has 
served as a NASA consultant. He now directs the Centre for UFO 
Studies in Evanston, Illinois, a central repository for UFO case 
material. As a result of his twenty years of investigations for the 
Air Force he became persuaded of both the reality and the crucial 
importance of the UFO phenomenon, and the strong possibility 
that UFOs were, indeed, extraterrestrial spacecraft. 

Beginning at least as far back as 1947, some reports of landed 

and hovering craft included descriptions of occupants - humanoids of various types. At the time, these accounts seemed almost 




impossible to believe. One could accept the possibility that we 
were being observed, studied from some distance by alien intelligences 
of some sort. But creatures,  people,  robots? And 
then, in 1965, a story was published in a Boston newspaper about 
the temporary abduction of two people, Mr. and Mrs. Barney Hill, 
by the occupants of a UFO. Their memories had been somehow 
blocked, and the kidnapping, which occurred in 1961, had only 
recently emerged through regressive hypnosis in the course of 
psychotherapy. At the time, many serious UFO researchers found 
the account difficult to believe, though now, a decade and a half 
later, the Hills' account is only one of literally hundreds very 
much like it. 

Since 1976 I have been involved to varying degrees with the 
investigation of nineteen similar abduction cases involving thirty-seven 
people. These nineteen cases have yielded clear patterns, 
though the thirty-seven people involved form a random cross - section 
of professions, ages, and social backgrounds. They include 
two registered nurses, a golf pro, several college students, a Wall 
Street lawyer, a painter, a news - media writer, a retired public 
school principal, an insurance underwriter, a college instructor, 
and so on. Seven of these nineteen cases form the heart of this 
book. I am convinced of the integrity of each individual witness, a 
trust that in some instances was reinforced by the use of polygraph 
tests. (This expensive step is usually not considered necessary 
when a thorough investigation has been undertaken.) 

At this time in the unfolding history of the UFO phenomenon, 
it seems to me as if these quite similar abductions constitute some 
kind of systematic "research" program, with the human species as 
subject. Individuals or small groups of people are involuntarily 
"borrowed" and most often the memory of such an encounter is 
effectively erased from the individual's consciousness, presumably 
by some sort of post - hypnotic suggestion. UFO investigators 
have come to rely upon regressive hypnosis as the most efficient 
method of unlocking the forgotten period of time - usually an hour 
or two - and recovering the often harrowing account of what actually 
happened; psychiatrists and psychologists who practice 
hypnosis have thus become our most helpful allies. 

What the purposes of these temporary abductions are, and 
what part of the experience may be purely psychic, we can only 
guess, but that they have physical dimension seems to me beyond 
doubt. As we will see, several abductees bear scars on their bodies 



MISSING TIME 

from incisions made years earlier when the subjects had been 
children. On separate occasions, I have heard these witnesses, 
under hypnosis, describe in almost exactly the same words the 
equipment used to make these incisions. Although these abduction 
accounts include almost nothing that can be construed as being 
deliberately hurtful or malevolent on the part of the abductors, 
the pattern that emerges, nevertheless, leaves me thoroughly 
alarmed. 

A typical abduction account follows one of several basic scenarios: 
in fact, it is the presence of certain familiar details in what 
seemed at first to have been only a routine UFO sighting which 
alerts the experienced investigator to inquire more deeply into the 
case. For this investigator, a mental red flag goes up if the witness 
seems confused about an unexplained loss of time, or complains 
of certain physical symptoms. As an example, I shall construct a 
hypothetical abduction case, a composite of commonly reported 
details from a number of actual accounts.8 Let us assume that a 
young man and his wife and year - old baby are on a trip, driving 
late at night on a relatively deserted highway. They see a bright 
light moving in the sky, and suddenly it approaches their car. They 
realize after a moment or so that it is not a plane or helicopter or 
anything familiar. It is soundless: it moves erratically: it can halt 
suddenly: it is totally unlike any aircraft they have ever seen before. 
Now it passes low over their car and seems to disappear 
behind a stand of trees. Then, unaccountably, their engine stalls as 
its electrical system fails, and they come to a stop. Next, the UFO 
flies off from a slightly different position from where they had last 
seen it, and their motor starts up again, seemingly on its own 
accord. They are bewildered but relieved that things are normal 
again. What they are not aware of is that it is now two hours later. 
They have all three spent that time inside a landed UFO undergoing 
some kind of examination, and the entire experience has been 
blocked from their conscious memories. The events immediately 
before and immediately after the abduction have been seamlessly 
joined, leaving them with little or no sense of missing time. 

I have described UFO abductions as constituting an epidemic; 
in fact, we have no idea how many such kidnappings may 
already have taken place, but I believe there are vastly more than 
the mere two hundred or so incidents, which have been investigated. 
Why these cases remain invisible will become evident 
when we return to our example. Most people having such an experience - and I mean by this only the sighting of the UFO, the 
part that has been consciously remembered - would not report it 
to any authority anywhere. There are indications that roughly seventy 
or eighty percent of these events go unreported, so the 
greatest possibility is that we would never have heard of this case 
in the first place. Such is the fear of ridicule and the confusion 
about where to go to report such an unlikely event! But let us place 
my example in the small minority and assume they stop along the 
way somewhere and call the police to report an unidentified flying 
object. Chances are the report begins and ends at the police 
station, probably relegated to the circular file by a weary dispatcher. 
In this case, however, we will assume a conscientious police 
officer does take down the account and phones it in, via a national 
toll - free hot - line, to the Centre for UFO Studies, or perhaps he 
notifies some other UFO investigatory organization, and eventually 
this family will be contacted by a trained investigator. 

These three assumptions we have made against the odds have 
kept our abduction case from sinking into invisibility. How many 
cases, one wonders, would have made it thus far? The UFO investigator 
begins his interrogation of the witnesses. He asks a few 
questions about the time and duration of the sighting. If the family 
checked the time at some point after their encounter, they would 
probably have become aware of the lost two hours. Very subtly, so 
as not to alarm them, the investigator inquires into the specifics of 
the time problem. He then asks if they experienced any unusual 
physical sensations,. of heat or cold or whatever, that they can 
recall. (These are not the precise symptoms he expects to find; he 
uses them merely to introduce the physical domain without leading 
the witnesses.) "That is interesting," the husband replies, "because 
there was something unusual." He and his wife each had 
strange red marks on their necks, he explains, and they had no 
idea how they got them. There was even one just like it on the 
baby, too. And something else. The next day he noticed a round, 
red mark next to his navel. It burned a little, and hurt when he 
touched it. In fact, he still has a little scar from it even though it's 
been a month since they saw the UFO. Our hypothetical investigator, 
knowing the significance of these frequently reported details, 
but not wishing for the time being to raise any disturbing 
possibilities, asks if the witness ever consulted a doctor about his 
condition. (In one case Ted Bloecher and I are currently investigating, 
a young man actually spent a full week in 1976 in the hospital undergoing tests for a suspected kidney tumor which turned 
out to be nonexistent. He neglected to tell his doctors that the 
peculiar marks on his abdomen, which had led them to suspect the 
tumor, appeared after a frightening experience in the woods with 
a landed UFO and a group of humanoids. A period of roughly an 
hour is missing from his recall. He said he knew the doctors would 
never believe him, but he was also reluctant himself to face the 
possible connection between the wounds and the UFO encounter. 
His companion on the camping trip still bears the faint traces of 
two small parallel cuts at the base of his spine which his wife 
discovered a day or so after his return.) 

The investigator would then ask the witnesses if they would 
like to undergo hypnosis with a professional psychologist to help 
them recall the details of their encounter that they cannot consciously 
remember. Herein lies the final and perhaps biggest "if" 
of all. Many people, possibly a majority who find themselves in 
this position, refuse to explore the matter any further, and for a 
variety of reasons. First, they are frightened of hypnosis itself, 
despite its increasing therapeutic use across a wide spectrum of 
medical situations. Many others may feel that there is really nothing 
more to remember about their encounter, most particularly in 
the cases where no physical traces exist, and an investigator is 
naturally hesitant to argue the point. But very often the witness 
senses that something odd happened to him in the period of missing 
time and he simply does not want to find out what it was. 
Several years ago, I was looking into a UFO close encounter 
involving seven young people who simultaneously - they were 
seated in three vehicles at the time - suffered a two - hour hiatus 
which began as they were approached by a double line of helmeted 
figures. The mother of one of the young women called me 
several days after we had discussed the issue of hypnosis with the 
group. "You think they were abducted that night, don't you?" she 
asked, surprising me because I had not given voice to my suspicions. 
"Yes, I do," I admitted. "So do I," she answered, interrupting 
me, "and I don't want my daughter to know what happened 
to her." I replied that psychologists usually feel that it is 
better to ventilate a traumatic experience that might otherwise, if it 
is kept buried, cause difficulties. "I know that, and I agree," she 
answered. "But now she's doing well in school and in her social 
life, and I don't want to bring up any problems. If the day comes 
when I feel it's causing her anguish, then I'll let her undergo hypnosis. In the meantime, you know the phrase, let sleeping dogs lie." I couldn't argue with her feelings, and there the matter rests.


Having considered some of the numerous - and enormous obstacles to the discovery of abduction cases, and to their subsequent in - depth investigation, one can only marvel that so many have, nevertheless, managed to come to our attention. And it seems obvious that for each single case we've heard about, investigated, 
and listed as an abduction or a probable abduction, there 
may be dozens still totally unknown, and that's only in the few 
Western countries - the U.S., England, France, and Canada where 
something of a widespread investigatory network exists. Fragmentary 
reports from everywhere else, from South Africa to Indonesia, 
suggest that the phenomenon is worldwide. In fact, one of the 
abductions I'll consider in depth occurred in France. 
And so, starting with the roughly five hundred12 individuals 
who, from a study of the reports, we feel reasonably sure have 
been abducted to date in the U.S., we can logically theorize that 
there may be tens of thousands of Americans whose encounters 
have never been revealed - bearing in mind that we are talking 


routine UFO sighting in which a time lapse and other suspicious details were uncovered. 
The discovery which impelled me to write this book is one I 
believe to be of extraordinary importance. The seven cases 
:stressed in these pages involve abductions of five different individuals. 
Three, who incidentally have never met, were taken as 
seven - year - old children, and incisions were made in their bodies, 
for whatever purposes we can only speculate. Two of them - and 
possibly all three - were apparently abducted a second time, one 
at age sixteen, one a few years later. All three were born in 1943, 
and were abducted in the summer of 1950. None of them had, 
to hypnotic regression, any recall whatsoever of a UFO or 
encounter of any kind. How they happened to undergo 
hypnosis in the first place involves a complex series of unlikely 
,..vents, which I shall describe in later chapters. Each case is in 
:some way intertwined with another involving a young man who 
was abducted in his early twenties, but who, like the others had 
absolutely no conscious memory of a UFO sighting; all that he had 
to go on was the "feeling" that "something may have happened" to 
him one night in 1973, on a particular road in Maryland, as he 



 

drove home from his girlfriend's house. Hypnosis revealed a classic 
abduction. An inescapable conclusion to be drawn from all 
these cases is that anyone could have been abducted, with no 
memory of it, no conscious recall even of a preliminary event like 
the sighting of a UFO. It could have happened to any one of us 
years ago, in childhood, or recently. No signs or clues may necessarily 
have remained. This, to me, is the most dramatic and disturbing 
possibility that has yet taken shape in all the years of UFO 
research. And yet what it finally means is as mysterious as ever. 
For all any of us knows the whole UFO phenomenon may be ultimately, 
blissfully benign - there is firm evidence for this position - 
and so having been abducted may turn out to have been a 
peculiar privilege. No one knows. All I can say is that I'm sure it is 
going on; people are being picked up, "examined" - sometimes 
marked for life - and released, their memories conveniently 
blocked. Beyond this, everything is speculation. 



headline,
CAPE Code GENESIS. 

How I, a rational, peace - loving artist, ever became involved 
in something so esoteric as the UFO phenomenon is something I'm 
really not sure of myself, though one thing is clear: events came to 
me - l didn't seek them out - in the beginning, at least. I was in 
high school and college during the late - Forties and early - Fifties 
when the first flying saucer accounts appeared in the newspapers. 
I was not particularly interested at the time and I remember barely 
paying attention to them. By the middle - Sixties, the subject of 
UFOs, so far as I knew, had completely receded from view, having 
been explained away by the Air Force investigators during the 
past decade. Big weather balloons or hallucinations or something 
or other had definitely caused all this mistaken excitement. 

I was living in Truro, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1964 in 
our recently constructed summer studio, and my first wife Joan 
and I were entertaining a house guest, Ted Rothon, an English 
social worker we had met on a European trip. Provincetown, Truro 
and Wellfleet constitute a vital summer art colony, and there 
is an endless procession of openings, cocktail parties, and sundry 
cultural and social events. On a late - August afternoon, Joan, Ted, 
and I set out from Truro, heading to Provincetown for a cocktail 
party. It was about five - thirty and the cloud masses from an earlier 
storm had broken up. Small clumps of clouds blew quickly in from 
the ocean as we drove along Route 6. One of us, I do not remember 
who, remarked upon a darkish, elliptical object in the sky off to 
our left and ahead of the car. It was small - two car - lengths long 
one might judge - and it did not seem to be moving. A cloud cluster approached it, floated in front of it, and obscured it from view. 
In seconds, the cloud passed by and there was our elliptical object 
again, still apparently in the same place, picking up a strong 
beam of temporary sunlight and appearing to be dull aluminum 
in color. Another cloud mass scudded behind it, silhouetting it for 
a moment. What could it be? We were intrigued, I slowed the car 
as we came closer to it, and now we were looking up at it at a 
steeper angle. It appeared to be circular when viewed more or less 
from underneath. At one point, it was swallowed up by another 
fast - moving cloudlet which apparently was of little substance; one 
could see our round object inside the cloud with all local color 
eliminated, and thereby appearing as black, like a ship in a fog 
bank. By this time, perhaps a minute and a half or so after we had 
first seen it, we were all three speculating. "Is it a balloon?" someone 
wondered. "If it is, it's tied to the ground," I said, "since it's not 
going anywhere and the wind is whipping the clouds along." It 
was definitely not a helicopter; there were no wings, no tail, no 
appendages of any kind - just a smooth circle seen from below, 
and a somewhat elliptical shape in profile. 

By now, we had passed it. I was driving very slowly and we 
were craning our necks to keep it in sight. Suddenly it moved off, 
crossing the road behind us, heading for the ocean against the 
wind. I stopped the car and we all jumped out and watched it 
silently disappear into the clouds that were blowing in from the 
northeast. It moved at the speed of, say, a small airplane. We were 
stunned, confused, and then excited. What was it? One of us, I 
forget who, said, "Do you suppose that was one of those 'flying 
saucers' you used to read about?" We went to the party, at Hudson 
and lone Walker's, and told about our adventure. One of the 
guests said that she had, the summer previously, seen a very similar 
object do very similar things at just about the same place along 
Route 6. Several other people had stories of their own. Intrigued, I 
began to look into the matter of UFOs, and was soon made aware, 
from a book I bought on the subject, that the situation was far from 
being resolved; that it was, in fact, a perplexing and ongoing mystery. 


An odd but very human reaction one has to such mysteries is 
to be able to accept as plausible only what strange thing one has 
personally experienced, and nothing further. I read accounts in 
these UFO books of sightings like mine; very believable, I thought. 
But then Look magazine published an account of the Betty and 



CAPE Coo GENESIS 

Barney Hill abduction, from John Fuller's book - length study of 
this first widely publicized kidnapping by UFO occupants.1 Ridiculous, 
I thought. Who can believe such foolishness? My logic 
remained unexamined. I accepted the possibility that what I saw 
over Route 6 might be some kind of spacecraft. some kind of 
extraterrestrial probe of our environment - after all, most scientists 
accept the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence as probable, so 
such eventual explorations would seem to be at least possible. I 
even vaguely admitted the possibility that there might have been 
some sort of living beings inside this possible spacecraft. But that 
they landed, and stopped a car, and kidnapped two people, and 
administered some sort of physical examination, and took skin and 
blood samples, and so on? Ridiculous! 

I continued to follow the UFO reports through newspaper 
articles and occasional paperback books, my interest stabilized on 
what I thought was a somewhat casual level. The painter's life 
does not easily allow for multiple obsessions. The actor Maximilian 
Schell acquired a 1968 painting of mine, Genesis I, which contained, 
as most of my work did in those years, a huge, ambiguous 
black circle. He remarked that there was something unearthly 
about the painting and suggested that I should go see Stanley Kubrick's 
film 2001, because he felt some kind of resonance between 
the two works. I disagreed with him after I saw the movie, but in 
retrospect I may have underestimated at the time the degree of my 
absorption in the UFO phenomenon. The subconscious is a busy 
place. 

It took three or four years for me slowly to admit to myself the 
possibility that the Betty and Barney Hill abduction just might 
have happened exactly as the Hills recalled through hypnosis. 
They had not; after all, initially claimed anything about an abduction. 
They had had a night time UFO sighting in 1961 on a remote 
highway in New Hampshire, and sensed that there were about 
two hours they could not account for on their drive home. Barney 
Hill began to have nightmares and to suffer from a recurrent ulcer. 
He went to a psychiatrist for help, and since some kind of 
hidden trauma seemed to be part of the problem, he entered into 
hypnosis. Out came a traumatic abduction by UFO occupants! Betty 
Hill also underwent regressive hypnosis without knowing any 
of the content of her husband's sessions; Dr. Benjamin Simon, the 
Hills' psychiatrist, gave both of his patients post - hypnotic suggestions 
that they would not remember what had transpired during 



 

their respective trance periods. Dr. Simon tape - recorded the sessions, 
however, and was struck by the similarity of their descriptions: 
of their humanoid captors, of the inside of the ship, of the 
circumstances of their kidnapping, and so on. 

As I read about the case in detail - ! finally bought Fuller's 
book, The Interrupted Journey - ! began to feel that the Hills 
were recalling precisely what had happened to them, and the fact 
that it emerged the way it did, under hypnosis, in two separate 
accounts, gave it unusual validity. If the UFOs were some kind of 
spacecraft piloted - if that's the word - by extraterrestrials, per· 
haps they might be exploring very cautiously, giving us a good long 
look, picking up "samples" under very safe conditions, really 
studying us at long range before landing and establishing contact. 
After all, it was rather puerile and anthropomorphic of us to expect aliens to behave as we had, landing on the moon, jumping out 
and sticking a little American flag, wired stiff for TV, pole first into 
the lunar dust - and then posing for pictures in front of it. 

Surreptitious examinations such as those conducted on Betty 
and Barney Hill made a great deal of sense, especially when contrasted with the foolish "landing - on - the - White - House - lawn – take us - 
to - your - leader" concept of what we should expect. Years later, 
I heard Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut who walked on the moon 
during the second landing, explain his position. "If we had expected 
to encounter any kind of living beings, which, of course, we 
didn't, we would naturally have asked NASA to put us down in 
some very unpopulated region where we could examine the local 
fauna in safety and at our discretion. We would have wanted to 
pick up some living specimens, examine them, and put them back 
with a minimum of fuss, hoping to get back to earth safely with as 
much information as possible."

By the time the Pascagoula abduction occurred in 1973,3 I was 
able to accept the idea of "human sample - taking" as quite plausible, within the context of the thousands of worldwide UFO sightings. 
The crucial reason for my ability to accept these accounts as 
true was the central issue: if these events did not occur as reported 
by the witnesses, then what caused their recollections? Many abductees 
have voluntarily submitted to polygraph examinations 
and voice stress analysis, the two most common "lie - detection" 
methods; so far as I know, no case reaching the level of investigation 
in which these devices were introduced has turned out to be a 
hoax. Clearly, the witnesses believe they are telling the truth. 



Then what happened? How can so many normal people with no 
discernable psychological disabilities have hallucinated in such 
elaborate corroborative detail, particularly when these very similar 
"hallucinations" usually emerge through regressive hypnosis? 
Not even Jung would have claimed archetypes to be so finely 
honed, nor so consonant. 

Over the years, friends began to pass on to me various UFO 
sightings of their own, and I began to take notes when they were of 
sufficient interest. Occasionally, during the later - Sixties and 
early - Seventies, I would bring the matter up at a dinner party and 
would almost never fail to elicit another report. Being an artist 
gave me a certain freedom to introduce such a peculiar subject; 
one can hardly imagine a neurosurgeon, an investment broker, or 
a psychiatrist admitting in public to a serious interest in UFOs in 
those years. The freedom an artist has is both an essential working 
condition and his greatest fringe benefit. He - or she - can keep 
the salacious novel out on the bed - table while the lawyer has it 
buried in his shirt drawer; the curiosity might be the same, but 
there is a different attitude toward concealment. 

The summer of 1975 was a crucial one for my interest in the 
UFO phenomenon. A series of sightings in the Truro - Wellfleet Provincetown 
area came to my attention, and I began a slightly 
more intensified investigation into each one. Betty Bodian, a 
painter friend of mine, reported a strange white globe in the twilit 
sky over Provincetown harbor. This glowing object, which appeared 
to be stationary, blinked on and off irregularly for about 
three minutes before it vanished. I was not particularly interested 
until Dan and Jan Boynton, then co - owners of the Provincetown 
Advocate, told me they had seen a glowing white light blinking 
oddly over the bay, and I learned that the time, location, and July 
16 date were the same as the former report; the interesting thing 
was that the Boyntons were at a location ninety degrees away from 
Ms. Bodian, separated by a distance of about three miles. Also 
very interesting was a human side - issue. The Boyntons personally 
wrote some of the copy for their paper; Dan was the editor and Jan 
took most of the photographs. They saw the UFO while driving in 
Truro on Route 6 (the same location, incidentally, where I had had 
my sighting years earlier), and carried on the back seat of the car 
all their camera gear. So two newspaper owners - editors - writers’ photographers 
spent two minutes or so discussing this odd thing in 
the sky without ever stopping a moment to photograph it; an example, perhaps, of why there are fewer UFO photographs than one 
might expect. 

Subsequently, four more witnesses to this UFO turned up, 
located at different places along a five - mile stretch. One of them, 
using binoculars, was sure she observed a row of what seemed 
like windows inside the glowing shape. This particular UFO - if 
indeed there was only one - turned out to be very busy, for a while 
almost ubiquitous. Within a six - week period from late June into 
August, an object fitting its description was seen on many occasions 
by: (1) two Wellfleet police officers, who watched it moving 
through the sky around three A.M. on July 3; (2) by a woman and her 
teen - aged daughter, who saw it west of Provincetown hovering 
and blinking; (3) on July 17, by a man in Eastham, a town near 
Wellfleet, who called the Coast Guard in the belief it was some 
kind of distress signal; and (4) most interesting of all, by David 
Lind and Bess Schuyler, near their property in Truro. They had 
returned home about eleven - thirty P.M. on a warm, foggy night August 
12 - when they saw, as they approached their house, what 
they took at first to be a fire below the top of a hill about a quarter 
of a mile away. They realized in seconds that it was not a fire but 
was, instead, a large circular light either resting on, or slightly 
above, the ground. David found his binoculars and through the fog 
the globe seemed to contain windows, or vertical sections of some 
sort, like a "southern mansion with columns," in his words. (The 
next day we found that a split - rail fence was located nearby, and 
if the object had been behind it, the slats could have caused this 
illusion.] David also noticed that from time to time the big light 
gave off individual beams of light, shining out from its circumference. 

Though the sight was most unusual, David and Bess decided 
in the darkness that it must be a house that they had never noticed 
before; perhaps a neighbour had cut down some foliage which had 
screened his dwelling from view, or perhaps had installed a huge 
new floodlight of some sort that was being enlarged by the fog. 
There must be some explanation like that, so they put away the 
binoculars and retired. 

I share a small house in New York with Bess and David, and 
know them very well. Bess is curious about the UFO phenomenon 
and David is rather sceptical, or in the very least, uninterested. In 
the morning, Bess called to tell me about it and to apologize for not 
alerting me the night before. She had awakened early and had 
gone outside with her binoculars. Because of the nature of the 
shoreline and the location of the little hill, the light could only 
have been in one specific place, and Bess quickly realized that 
there was no house near that spot - just low ground cover, what is 
called on the Cape "hog cranberry," and scrub pine. There are 
two houses in the general vicinity, one of which had been for 
years the summer residence of Edward Hopper, the great American 
painter, but on the night before both houses were lit and visible. 
Somewhere between them there had been a large, unknown 
light, emitting beams, and apparently very close to the ground, if 
not resting on it. I drove over to see what I could find, and in 
minutes uncovered something else. 

Bess remained on her deck in the spot where she and David 
had watched the light, and I moved out towards the hill. Bess 
waved her arm to the left or right, steering me to the site, and as I 
walked along I saw a car approach. A woman and a teen - aged girl 
drove up to the cottage and stopped; they were the summer tenants 
in the house closest to the critical spot, so I asked them about 
the incident after explaining what I was doing. Unfortunately, the 
night before the mother had retired very early and was asleep by 
eleven - thirty; her daughter, and a son who was soon to join us, had 
been in Provincetown that night until one A.M., and so they, too, 
had not seen anything unusual. But I noticed that all three exchanged 
quick, meaningful glances. 

"Did anyone see anything peculiar three nights ago?" the 
woman asked, and then told me her story. It had been a Saturday 
night and for some reason she couldn't fall asleep, so she decided 
to read. Around one - thirty in the morning, a light began to shine in 
her bedroom window - a very bright, moving light, whose source 
was apparently high enough not to be visible. The light streamed 
in, passing rather quickly and moving towards the bay. It was very 
bright, white, and very odd, she thought; the area is quite isolated 
and she was alarmed. Instead of going to her window, which faced 
roughly south, she went to the stairs and called to her daughter, 
whose room on the floor above faced west. The daughter awakened 
in time to see the light stream in her windows and pass by, 
heading north, as if circling the house. Again no light source could 
be seen. Wide awake now, and curious, the girl came downstairs 
to her mother's room, just in time to see the light come by again, 
this time reversing its earlier path to run counter - clockwise. And 
that was that. None of the family of three had any idea what it 



 

could have been. It was soundless. The Cape is a very quiet 
place - noise of any sort carries great distances, and neighbours 
claim they hear each other turn on the lights. 

My only theory was that automobile headlights from a car 
driving on the dirt road that leads to the Hopper house might 
somehow have been the cause, though it looked unlikely because 
a ridge intervenes between road and house. Nevertheless, I decided 
to experiment. Late that night, I returned in my car. The 
family retired to their rooms, set the lights as they were that evening, 
and I took to the wheel. I drove forward, stopped, backed up, 
turned around, flicked from high to low beams; in fact, did everything 
but drive straight into the sand. They never saw a flicker 
from my car; the ridge, as I suspected, blocked everything. 

Within the week, I learned about a third incident close to the 
Lind - Schuyler house. In late June, a psychotherapist and his wife, 
whose home is located about three - quarters of a mile away, had 
been napping in their bedroom after dinner. They awakened and 
noticed what they took to be the full moon shining low in the sky, 
until they realized that the moon was not full at the time, and 
besides, was not visible in that location. They told me weeks later 
that the incident had been vaguely unnerving, so without saying 
anything much about it, they had gone into the front of their house 
to brew some coffee. The moon was visible from the living room 
windows. They had their coffee and dawdled a bit, and then 
returned to their bedroom, both of them glancing casually toward 
the sky: the globe of light was still where it had been. Neither 
remarked to the other about it, but both decided to go back to the 
living room. After a second uneasy wait, which again was deliberately 
not discussed, they went back to their bedroom, saw the 
peculiar light, and once more found an excuse to visit the living 
room. They passed the time in casual, unrelated conversation, and 
eventually wandered back to their bedroom for the third time. The 
light was no longer there and, much relieved, they retired for the 
night. They admitted to me that neither mentioned the incident to 
the other the next morning, nor, for that matter, ever, until they 
had heard about the strange "Truro Light" from some friends of 
theirs, who also told them of my interest. In retrospect, they found 
their behaviour at the time very interesting. "Out of sight, out of 
mind," had been buttressed by "Out of conversation, out of existence." 
To have discussed the matter would have been to admit a 
presence they knew to be unsettling and genuinely mysterious. 



GAPE Coo GENESIS 

The writer Donald Barthelme said to me once after he had 
read an account of a UFO landing I had written for the Village 
Voice that his life was complicated enough not to have to add this 
issue to the things he had to worry about. He was sorry he'd read 
the piece in the first place. I know what he means. I certainly 
never wanted to deal with the UFO problem, a phenomenon that 
until that 1964 August afternoon on the road to Provincetown I 
didn't even know existed. 

I have deliberately skimmed over these 1975 Cape Cod sightings, 
not because they aren't interesting in themselves, but 
because they are far down on the list of cases which warrant thorough 
investigation, and at the time they occurred I was just beginning 
to pursue the subject actively. A few months after I returned 
to New York, everything changed when, one November evening, 
George O'Barski told me about his experience in North Hudson 
Park. But this, at least, tells how my interest in the UFO phenomenon 
began. 


Next headline,
THE LANDING IN North Hudson PARK. 


Across the street from my studio in the Chelsea district of 
Manhattan, there is a small liquor store. It is typical of hundreds 
just like it - physically undistinguished, but open fourteen or fifteen hours every day, and a regular neighborhood stopping - off 
place, like the dry cleaners or the supermarket. The owners are 
Bill Burns and George O'Barski, and they have been selling me my 
dinner wine and doing emergency check cashing for me for over 
twenty years. 

In November of 1975, George O'Barski was seventy - two years 
old. He is street - wise, astute, and reflective - an essential set of 
qualities for New Yorkers - and he is also a strict teetotaller. On a 
particular late November evening, I came into his store to buy a 
bottle of Soave to have with supper. George was pacing back and 
forth behind the counter, obviously troubled. He began complaining 
about an arthritic pain in his knee, and then muttered something 
to me about how you didn't know anymore what might hap· 
pen. "A man can be driving home, minding his own business, and 
something can come down out of the sky and scare you half to 
death." Naturally, I stopped him there. "What do you mean, 
'Something can come down out of the sky'?" Slowly and reluctantly, he began to tell me the story, and he continued only because I 
assured him I was seriously interested in what had happened to 
him. Two or three other customers entered the store and caused 
lengthy interruptions, so I told George I'd be back after dinner to 
hear the rest of his adventure. He had no idea, I realized, that I 
was interested in "things that come down out of sky," so his hesitation to expose himself to ridicule was natural. And his story was 
all but incredible. 
An hour or so later, I was back in the store with my cassette 
:tape recorder, and George cautiously began to unburden himself. 
The incident had happened ten months previously, in the middle 
:of January. George had closed the store at midnight, walked "Cognac," 
his German shepherd guard dog, and had then worked on 
his bookkeeping and shelf - replenishing. Around one or two A.M., 
he locked up and started for home in his black Chevrolet. 
George lives in North Bergen, New Jersey, just across the 
Hudson River from Manhattan. That night, according to habit, he 
was driving through deserted North Hudson Park on his way to a 
twenty - four - hour diner in Fort Lee. His car radio began to pick up 
Static and "sound tinny," and, as he fumbled with the dial, muttering 
at the prospect of another costly repair, a low, brilliantly lit 
object passed his car a hundred feet or so on the left, travelling in 
the same direction. It was a warm night, George remembered, and 
the window was partway down on the driver's side. He heard a 
quiet humming or droning sound coming from the craft, which 
now had stopped in a playing field ahead of his car. Proceeding 
very slowly and feeling totally bewildered by what he was seeing, 
George drew closer to the roundish, thirty - foot - long ship, which 
now was hovering about ten feet above the ground. It was circumscribed 
by a series of regularly spaced vertical windows, roughly a 
foot wide by four feet high. George looked on in stunned disbelief 
as a narrow panel opened between two windows and a ladder like 
apparatus emerged. The ship settled to within four feet of the 
playing field, and immediately a group of small figures appeared 
and, one after the other, descended to the ground. 
George estimates that they were only three - and - a - half – to four - 
feet tall, and they were clad in identical helmeted, or hooded, 
one - piece light - colored garments. "They looked like kids in snowsuits," 
he recalled. There were at least nine and possibly ten or 
eleven of them - he was too shocked to count - but he could not 
make out their faces. When George was telling me these things, his 
eyes were round, startled again by the memory of his terror: 

I've been held up in the store lots of times by men with pistols 
and knives, and I've been plenty scared, but nothing like this, 
ever." He accents, and repeats, the last phrase. He kept his car 
moving slowly, but the figures paid no attention to him. Each one 
carried a large spoonlike tool and a little bag with a handle. They 
moved quickly. In George's words, "They came down this ladder 
thing like kids coming down a fire escape. Fast. No wasted motion." They dug, spooning the dirt into their bags. In a few moments, 
they were back inside and the UFO ascended, moving 
north. George, at his closest, was sixty feet away. The entire incident took place in less than four minutes. 

I asked George what he did when he got home. "Hey,    I was 
sweating. I immediately made some tea." Usually he turned on the 
TV and watched a late movie, but he was too frightened to risk 
leaving any lights on in his apartment. "I went to bed. I went to 
bed, I was that scared. I pulled the covers over my head. I got up 
and took two aspirin. You know, I was scared. I figured the whole 
damn world had come to an end. I didn't know what the hell to 
think,    I thought either I'm going crazy or there's something 
awfully wrong down there." 

The next morning, George went back to the park. He walked 
over to the spot where the UFO had landed. There in a small area 
were about fifteen little holes, four or five inches deep. He said, 
"You know, when I went there and saw those holes, I got even 
more scared. I'll tell you something. I even felt those holes. I 
didn't believe it looking at them. I put my hand in one." 

Like most people who have had experiences like his, George 
tried every means he could to wish away the memory. He wanted 
to believe he had dreamed the whole thing, or even that "I had 
somehow slipped a gear." He told me that when he saw and felt 
the holes, he had to go home and make some more tea and take 
two more aspirin. Though eventually we located a number of other 
people who also saw, in North Hudson Park and on the same 
night, what was undoubtedly the same UFO, the confirmation of 
his sighting has, if anything, made it more disturbing for him. 

A common misconception about people who report encounters with unidentified flying objects is that they "believe in 

UFOs." The fact is that very few witnesses have a priori beliefs. 

They are firm about the accuracy of their descriptions of color, 

shape, height, movement, etc., but they offer few explanations of 

what they believe the object was. In a reflective moment, George 

has told me he has theorized that the government or the CIA or 

perhaps a foundation somewhere has developed a secret method 

of propulsion, powering totally unconventional craft like the one 

he saw. "But then," he added, "it makes no sense. Why couldn't 

they just send up for soil samples? And how could they recruit all 



THE LANDING IN NORTH HUDSON PARK 

those little guys? A normal run would have guys all heights. It 
doesn't make sense." 

As I listened to George's story, I noticed certain internal details 
which reinforced the conviction I held about his veracity. 
First of all, probably no one making up a story like this (and for 
what reason?) would, in effect, leave himself out of the events. 
George's role is strictly passive. Never once does a small figure 
notice him, turn towards him, threaten him, or hand him a "message." 
He merely drives by, watching. Almost all serious UFO 
reports involve benign, or at least neutral behavior, and George's 
story, in this respect. is typical. 

Second, it seems to me that anyone inventing a sensational 
encounter with "space beings" would begin by creating a weird, 
memorable face: huge eyes, pointed ears, or whatever, and then 
work down to trivial details. George's "snowsuited kids" wore helmets, 
obscuring their faces, yet he is sure that their boots were of 
one piece with their trouser legs. And far from giving himself a 
heroic role in the encounter, George underlined how petrified he 
had been - "You just stop functioning," he said - and went on to 
admit that he, a man in his seventies, had gone to bed with the 
covers pulled up over his head. When the UFO took off, it flew 

.north extremely quickly and lightly, he recalled, as if it were metal 
and somewhere high up there was a giant magnet attracting it. 
Listening to George's particular choice of imagery, I had the inescapable 
impression that an intelligent, careful man was trying his 
best to find words to describe an almost incredible experience. 

It was essential, I realized, to locate an investigator from a 
serious UFO organization who would know exactly what to do 
next. A few phone calls led me to Ted Bloecher, at that time New 
York State director of MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) and an 
investigator with twenty - five years' experience. On November 20, 
Ted came to my studio to listen to the tape I had made in George's 
store. He was entranced - it is difficult not to be - by George's diamond - 
in - the - rough account. Everyone connected with UFO research 
has heard reams of scientific and quasi - scientific speculation 
about these machines' as yet unknown method of propulsion. 
George put it this way: "When it took off, I looked underneath, you 
know. I said. 'There must be a big fan in there or something that 
runs this thing,    but I can't see nothing'!' " In subsequent 
months he returned to this theme. "You know, when I was a kid I 
saw everything. I saw the dirigibles and they made noise. The 



 

little biplanes used to come to the towns, and you'd have to pay a 
quarter to watch them land and take off, and they made more 
noise. And then they had the airlines with twin engines and they 
made a terrible racket. After the war, there were the jets and they 
practically deafened you. Each time they made something go faster, it was harder on the ears. Now they have the Concorde, and 
it's the fastest of all and nobody wants it around because when it · 
takes off it shakes all the shingles off the houses. But this thing I 
saw that night in the park! It made only a little hum, just like a 
refrigerator starting up. And it went away almost before you could 
blink an eye! I'll tell you! I've never seen or heard anything like it. 

It was awesome." 

Ted Bloecher introduced me to a young UFO investigator 
named Gerald Stoehrer, and on Saturday, November 23, we three 
drove to North Hudson Park to meet George and reenact his three after midnight encounter. The plain where the UFO landed is a large athletic 
field, rimmed by trees and used for both football and softball. The 
UFO crew would have had a nice view of the upper Manhattan 
skyline because the landing site is directly opposite West 88th 
Street. In fact, the ship carne down less than four miles from the 

North Hudson Park is a pleasant, manicured place, about a 
quarter of the size of Central Park. It has a lake, a wooded area, 
and the genteel, well - tended lawns common to civilized city 
parks. At the precise spot where George told us the ship touched 
down there is a thick mat of coarse grass, within which we found a 
series of fifteen or so bare places, about six inches in diameter, 
where the grass was entirely missing. There are no actual holes: 
remaining, but the dirt in each little grassless circle contained no 
traces of roots, a fact discovered by Ted Bloecher when he took 
soil samples for possible future examination. Several weeks later 
we located the park custodian, whose job includes packing any 
holes he finds on the playing field to prevent accidents. He remembered that, in the early summer, he had refilled a number of 
small holes in that general vicinity. He had no idea what caused 
them, but assumed they must have been dug by unleashed dogs. 

On this sunny afternoon, Ted stationed himself at the precise 
landing spot while Stoehrer and I got into George's car. George 
took the wheel to retrace his route that January night. With the· 
tape recorder going and Stoehrer timing each incident as George 



recalled it, we rode along through the park, listening to his story. 
From the moment his radio started to misbehave till the UFO liftoff, 
slightly under four minutes elapsed. The drive established a 
plausible time - frame, and we had a new, more detailed account to 
compare with the earlier one. 

At the bottom of the hill by the park is a tall, circular, modern 
structure named, ironically, the Stonehenge Apartments. By coincidence, 
I knew the building because a collector of my work once 
lived there, and I remembered that Stonehenge is served by twenty - 
four - hour doormen. The building sits atop the Palisades, and 
tenants who face the Hudson River have a dramatic downstream 
view of Manhattan. The main entrance, however, is on the side 
which faces North Hudson Park. An alert doorman would have 
had an excellent view of anything coming to earth in the spot 
George had pointed out to us. I walked down the hill, three 
hundred yards or so from the landing site to the front door, preparing 
to ask a few questions. The doorman on duty was a large, 
hearty, helpful man by the name of Eddie Oberterbussing. I told 
him that I was investigating an incident that had occurred in the 
park the previous January, very late at night, that might involve a 
UFO. I deliberately withheld any other details such as precise 
date, location, description of the object, etc. Eddie told me that the 
two night men who worked at the Stonehenge that January had 
both since left for other jobs. However, one of them, Bill Pawlowski 
by name, had reported an odd incident: sometime in January, 
during the small hours, one of the huge plate glass windows at the 
entrance had been shattered under rather unclear circumstances. 
Eddie had not been in touch with Pawlowski for many months, but 
he was kind enough to find his new address for me. 


Ted Bloecher is a walking encyclopaedia of Air Force and 
civilian UFO reports. He felt, when I told him about the broken 
window, that there was probably no connection whatsoever between 
the accident and the UFO sighting, and it was only in subsequent 
months that he came across a case or two indicating something 
of a precedent.1 There was no such difficulty with landing 
and soil - gathering reports such as George's. There are scores of 
similar accounts of small figures digging earth samples and even 
removing plants from farms. These events apparently have occurred 
over a span of some thirty years in the United States, 
France, South America, and elsewhere. And it is extremely common for witnesses to such preposterous events to hesitate, like 
George, for months before telling anyone their stories. Ridicule 
and disbelief are predictable responses. 

George O'Barski, a widower, did not awaken his son to tell 
him what happened that night. Not until the next day, after he had 
returned to the park and examined the holes, did he finally unburden 
himself. George told me that, had he seen a policeman five 
minutes after the UFO had taken off, he would not have reported 
it. "A man my age telling a story like this - why, they'd put you 
away. If you'd come in here a year ago and told me the same story, 
I wouldn't have believed you, either." The pressure to share his 
perplexity and fear must finally have been too strong, and in a 
very hesitant, guarded way he had approached me, though he had 
no reason to believe I would be a sympathetic listener. 

Bill Pawlowski, the former doorman, proved to be difficult to 
locate. I called him at his home in south-eastern New Jersey many 
times over a two - week period. As I learned later, he was working: 
nights at a security job and the phone was unplugged during the 
daytime so he could sleep. On December 5, I reached him. I said 
that I was looking into an incident that had occurred in the park 
opposite the Stonehenge Apartments the previous January and, 
asked if he recalled seeing anything odd. His answer was immediate. 
He said that he did recall an incident, and that it had been 
frightening. It had been two or three in the morning and he had 
looked up into the park because he had suddenly noticed some) 
extremely bright lights shining down the hill towards him. These 
lights, he said, were in a horizontal row, ten to fifteen of them, 
regularly spaced. He had never seen anything like it. For a moment, 
he wondered if it couldn't possibly be an evenly parked row 
of automobiles shining their headlights towards him, but then he. 
realized the lights appeared to be about ten feet off the ground. He 
could make out a continuous dark mass surrounding the row of 
illumination; he knew that he was seeing something disturbingly 
unusual. 

He walked over to the window for a better view, and then 
decided to call a tenant in the building. He turned behind him to 
the phone, dialed the number, and began to speak when he heard 
a high - pitched vibration and a sudden crack. The lobby window 
had broken at a low point near his feet. He hung up and crouched 
down to look at the break; when he glanced up a moment later, the
lights were gone. He immediately called the police. 



They responded promptly, he said, probably because a North 

Bergen police lieutenant lives in the building. The two patrolmen 

and Pawlowski examined the break, which turned out to be peculiar. Whatever struck the glass did not come through. On the out


side, there was an indentation as if a marble of glass had been 

gouged out of the surface; from this little crater radiated a series of 

cracks. No projectile could be found anywhere nearby. Opposite 

the front entrance to Stonehenge is a wide driveway bordered by 

a low wall, and behind the wall there is a ten - foot drop. Whatever 

broke the window had to have come from above, and it was clear 

to Pawlowski the "shot" was fired from the hill across the road. He 

did not, however, tell the police about the lights in the park; again, 

the old reluctance to open oneself to ridicule. "The lights had disappeared," he said, "and I thought they'd never believe me any 
way, so I didn't tell them. I just suggested they drive around up 

there and see what they could find." They resumed their patrol, 

but skipped the park altogether; it turns out that North Hudson 

Park does not fall within the jurisdiction of the North Bergen Police Department. 

I asked Pawlowski if he had told anyone else that night about 

the object in the park, and, to my immense relief, he had. The 

police lieutenant who lived in Stonehenge - A Del Gaudio - was 

on night duty and returned at about six - thirty A.M., some three and 

a half or four hours after the landing in the park. Bill was on 

friendly terms with the lieutenant and told him his story. On December 9, I phoned Lieutenant Del Gaudio to ask him about it. He 

is a brusque, no - nonsense kind of professional, judging by his 

voice. My questions, specifically, were: did he know Bill Pawlowski, and what had the former doorman told him the night the 

window was broken? "Sure, I knew him," said the lieutenant. "He 

used to work nights. I came in about six - thirty that morning and he 

had some wild story about this big thing with lights on it that came 

down in the park. He thought it was involved with the broken 
window, but you can't believe a story like that. He must've been 
drinking or something." (The all - purpose answer, like "Shut 
up.") 

Each detail of Pawlowski's story confirmed O'Barski's. 
George had seen the object from a moving car, so it was not easy 
for him to estimate the number of lighted windows visible from a 
single point of view. He guessed ten or twelve, and possibly as 
many as fifteen. Pawlowski remembered seeing ten to fifteen 



 

lights; he was nervous enough not to count. George had said that 
the UFO stopped ten feet off the ground and then settled a bit 
until it was only about four feet from the field. Pawlowski's guess, 
from approximately three hundred yards away, was that the lights 
were ten feet off the ground. Since the lights did not extend all the 
way to the bottom of the UFO, their estimates are quite similar. 
Both agreed that the entire sighting had lasted only three minutes 
or so, and both set the time as around three A.M. All this information 
was elicited separately and voluntarily from each, and neither 
man had ever met or spoken to the other. 

I ended my phone conversation to Pawlowski thoroughly 
shaken. What had begun as an almost incredible story - which I 
believed - told to me by a man I had known then for seventeen 
years, had just turned into something more complicated, more certain, 
and more disturbing. An unknown craft of some sort had 
landed one mile from Broadway, and sixty feet from poor George 
O'Barski driving home from work. The uniformed - and uniform - 
crew had disembarked and taken earth samples. Why, and 
why from this spot? 

Scenarios followed as I tried to put the parts together. Aboard 
the UFO, had someone, or something, seen, in the large round 
building down below, a uniformed human looking back up the 
hill? Bill Pawlowski in his Stonehenge livery unfortunately 
reached for the phone, and crack went the window. End of phone 
call. End of soil collection. Somehow the "shot" seemed more like 
a warning than a miss. 

The next step Ted, Gerry Stoehrer, and I planned was to 
interview Pawlowski in greater depth in hopes of bringing up additional 
information. And then, more crucially, to take him back to 
the park so that he could show us exactly where he saw the UFO. 
We gave him no details whatsoever from George's account - we 
wanted his memory to be as pure as possible. Under further questioning, 
Bill remembered something else which intrigued us. At 
the foot of the hill across from Stonehenge is a large tree made up 
of three trunks growing from one set of roots. One trunk grew 
somewhat parallel to the ground, but in a direct line with both the 
Stonehenge entrance and the UFO site atop the hill. Pawlowski 
insisted that, when the sun came up the morning of the landing, 
the large trunk was broken and hanging down. He believes the 
same "weapon" which cracked the window also sliced through 
the tree. The park service has since cut back the broken trunk 

almost to the ground, so we will probably never know if the two 
accidents had the same mysterious cause. 

Central, now, to our investigation was the matter of exactly 
where Pawlowski remembered seeing the UFO. He returned to 
the park on December 11 - his first visit in months - with Gerry 
Stoehrer, and, from his old post at the Stonehenge entrance, 
looked back up the hill. He had recalled a pole which apparently 
bisected the lights, as if it were in front of, but close to, the UFO. 
Atop the hill there had been a flagpole, since removed, but it had 
been located about two hundred feet to the left of the place 
O'Barski put the landing site. Pawlowski looked, pondered, and 
finally decided that it could not have been the flagpole in front of 
the lights, because he remembered them being further to the right, 
where, in fact, a tall lamppost stands. He walked straight up into 
the park to the exact spot that O'Barski had named. Gerry had 
been holding his breath; he relaxed - we had our final detail confirmed. 


Bill never saw the diminutive crew members, which is not 
surprising. First of all, they were working on the ground about fifty 
feet or so back from the crest of the hill, so they probably would 
not have been visible from the entrance to the Stonehenge. Also, 
the difficulty in looking out from inside a lighted room, through 
the reflections on the glass, obscures small details - Bill was only 
able to see the unusually bright lights and the darkish shape containing 
them. He was amazed when we finally told him the other 
details of George's account. He seemed to be feeling a mixture of 
both envy and relief that O'Barski had been about a thousand feet 
closer to the UFO and its busy occupants. 

One of the areas one routinely checks in such cases is the 
FAA's air traffic control to see if a radar operator might have 
tracked an unidentified object that night. The New York - New Jersey 
area FAA spokesman I talked to had nothing for me on this 
case, but he was interested in the report for personal reasons. A 
number of years ago, he told me, when he was himself a traffic 
controller for an upstate New York airport, he tracked a UFO at 
supersonic speeds. Most interestingly, and this is quite uncommon 
UFO behavior, the object was in level flight, parallel to the 
ground. Controllers at the two airfields closest to his reported that 
they, too, were tracking the UFO on their radar screens. He explained 
to me that, in this recent North Hudson Park case, the 
UFO would probably not have been picked up. Now, a computer 



 

system intervenes between the actual radarscope and the screens 
that the controllers use. Most non - aircraftlike radar targets are 
automatically siphoned off the controllers' screens, thus avoiding 
"ground clutter," inversions, and other potentially confusing data. 
When I explained the location and altitude and incredible speed 
of the UFO as George described it, he assured me that the computer 
would probably have automatically eliminated it, and no 
controller would have ever seen it on his screen. 

In the course of interviews we conducted with other Stonehenge 
staff members, we learned that Frank Gonzalez, the doorman 
who worked on Pawlowski's nights off, had once confided in 
a fellow employee about a sighting he had made. Gonzalez had 
left the Stonehenge months before for a job in Riverdale, where 
he lived with his wife and daughters. Ted called him at his new 
apartment and set up an appointment for Sunday, the first of February. 
We were eager to learn whatever we could about his sighting, 
which evidently preceded the O'Barski - Pawlowski encounter. 


Francisco "Frank" Gonzalez is a small, neat, careful man 
whose English is far from fluent. His teen - aged daughter gracefully 
helped the three of us over the inevitable linguistic rough spots. 
Frank's sighting occurred between two and three A.M. on Monday 
morning, January 6, six days to the hour before the landing in the 
park witnessed by O'Barski and Pawlowski. He had been standing 
inside the main entrance to the Stonehenge when he noticed a 
large, bright light hovering motionless above the playing field in 
North Hudson Park. Curious, he opened the door and stepped 
outside. "I saw something round, very bright, you know,  with 
some windows. I hear some noise,    it's not like a helicopter, 
nothing like that. Like a plane, no, no. Something different. I was 
afraid, I tell you,    I come back (inside). Then, you know, I see 
that light go straight up and I said, 'Oh, God!' " 

Gonzalez guessed that the object was about as high up as the 
twentieth floor of Stonehenge Apartments. He described the 
sound it made as a "heavy sound," which almost hurt his ears, and 
the imitation he attempted came close to George's "refrigerator 
motor" drone. Another detail from the later encounter was confirmed 
when he described the color of the light. O'Barski had been 
firm about the fact that the light from the windows was of a regular 
incandescent hue; that is, closer to amber than to the blue of 
fluorescent lamps. We asked Gonzalez about the hue of the lights 



he saw. "Jello," he answered, and his daughter delicately removed 
the Cuban "j " and turned the word into its proper "yellow. " With 
marvelous ingenuousness, Frank produced a drawing for us of the 
craft he had seen; it had a bottom ringed with rectangular windows, 
but no top. "I couldn't see the top of it, " he admitted. "It was 
dark, but the bottom was all bright." When he first sighted the 
UFO, he had called the security guard, but unfortunately for all of 
us, he was in the garage and unavailable as a confirming witness. 


We gave Frank a rough map showing some of the landmarks 
in the park: the flagpole, the various roads, the playing field, and 
he unhesitatingly placed the UFO directly over the field in exactly 
the spot where Pawlowski and O'Barski had seen it touch down 
six days later. Furthermore, Frank described a kind of spotlight on 
the craft's underside illuminating what was to be its eventual 
landing site. The entire episode suggested a preliminary reconnaissance 
flight to check out the terrain in an almost old - fashioned 
military sense. Our speculation along these lines was strengthened 
when, about two months later, Gerry Stoehrer located witnesses to 
yet another preliminary flight, by what has to be the same UFO, 
and this time only a few hours before the final landing. 

Early in January, before I had heard Frank Gonzalez's story, I 
began writing an account of the North Hudson Park landing. It 
was published in The Village Voice on March 1, and caused 
something of a stir in the vicinity of the Stonehenge Apartments. 
One of the reasons I wrote the piece in the first place was that I 
hoped it might flush out a few more witnesses to an event I knew 
had to have been seen by more people than just George and Bill. 
To this purpose, I had deliberately refrained from including certain 
facts in my article. I did not specify the exact date, saying only 
that it was in "mid - January." I did not describe the color of the 
body of the object itself - "Very dark," said George, "almost 
black." And there was a third crucial fact: the weather. January 
1975, as one would expect, was mostly cold, with the temperature 
remaining in the twenties and thirties. Only twice did it rise into 
the forties. But at three A.M. on the 12th, when the UFO landed, it 
was in the high fifties, and at nine - thirty P.M. on the 11th, about 
five hours before the landing, it was a balmy sixty - three degrees. It 
was important for us to keep these pieces of information undisclosed, 
to provide a test of the veracity of anyone who subsequently 
might come forward claiming to have seen the UFO. 




 

Towards the end of March, Gerry Stoehrer gave a talk to a 
PTA group in North Bergen on the subject of UFOs. After he finished, 
twelve - year - old Robert Wamsley and his mother, Alice, approached 
him to tell of their sighting. At nine - thirty on a Saturday 
night - they were sure of the time because the family had been 
watching "The Bob Newhart Show" on television - Robert 
glanced out the window and saw, to his complete amazement, a 
round, domed craft, brilliantly lit, just outside the house. The 
Wamsleys live twelve blocks south of North Hudson Park, or 
about fourteen blocks from the Stonehenge Apartments. Robert 
alerted his mother and the rest of the family. Joseph Wamsley, the 
father, and the other children - Joseph, Jr., age sixteen, and Debbie, 
thirteen - ran outside for a better look. 

The UFO was encircled by rectangular windows, which gave 
off a yellowish light. It was moving very slowly, perhaps forty or 
fifty feet off the ground, and it glided at a slight angle, "as if," Mrs. 
Wamsley thought, "it was looking in .people's windows." Stoehrer 
visited the Wamsleys two days later and collected further details. 
The UFO had flown along Boulevard East toward North Hudson 
Park. Four members of the Wamsley family ran along the street, 
following it for perhaps two minutes or more. The object, picking 
up speed, was finally lost from view in the vicinity, as Alice 
Wamsley puts it, "of the big round house" (The Stonehenge Apartments). 
She provided a crucial detail. When she first saw the UFO, 
she was lounging in her bathrobe. Not wanting to miss anything, 
she had run outside to follow it down the street wearing only her 
robe. She was in her bare feet, too, but she remembered that it was 
a very mild night and she wasn't at all cold, a real surprise for 
January! 

We had originally checked the weather conditions for several 
reasons. One, as a routine matter to gain background information; 
two, to see if it would have been possible to dig up soil that conceivably 
was frozen; and three, to check on George O'Barski's 
statement that he heard the UFO's hum because he had his car 
window partway down, due to the mildness of the weather. Mrs. 
Wamsley running down a New Jersey street in January in her bare 
feet provided a special confirmation of the date and circumstances 
of the landing. A final matter was the question of the UFO's color. 
Gerry asked the Wamsleys their recollections. "The body was 
dark gray or even maybe black," said Robert, and we had a final 
verification. 

So the North Hudson Park UFO scouted a landing spot on 
Monday, January 6, 1975, at three A.M., and was seen by doorman 
Gonzalez. At nine - thirty P.M. on Saturday night, it returned, passing 
low over the area, and was followed down the street by the 
Wamsley family, dazzled by its lights and its peculiar hum. It sped 
over the park again and disappeared somewhere near the Stonehenge 
Apartments. Then, a scant five hours later, it was back for 
its mission. It landed in front of George O'Barski, the "crew" disembarked, 
dug their soil samples, fired a warning "shot" at Bill 
Pawlowski, and departed. The whole mysterious business took 
place over six days and must have been witnessed by many more 
than the eight people I have described. (Alice Wamsley's sister, 
whom I have not mentioned, provides a ninth.) 

In the months following these events, Ted Bloecher, George 
O'Barski, myself, and the others involved in the case have speculated 
on what it all may have meant. It seems absurd on the face of 
it to imagine that the entire episode occurred because a UFO 
crew, whoever they may be, actually needed soil from North Hudson 
Park. Could the mission instead have been a species of theater, 
a display of imagery designed to communicate certain basic 
information? Ted Bloecher and many other experienced investigators 
seriously entertain this theory. Looking coldly at the implications, 
this is what one might deduce, thinking metaphorically 
rather than literally: 

1. The need to take samples of earth connotes a non - Earth 
origin or habitat; i.e., the idea of "extraterrestrials" is conveyed. 
(George thought of our astronauts taking rock samples on the 
moon.) 
2. And, the unknown, "magical" propulsion system of their 
craft suggests a technology far in advance of ours. Scientific superiority 
is strongly conveyed. 
3. Yet, the two - armed, two - legged "kids in snowsuits" suggests 
a race of people like us, arid therefore not terrifyingly 
alien. 
4. Their diminutive size and neutral behavior towards George 
O'Barski a mere sixty feet away implies definite non - hostility. 
5. The "shot" which broke the window at Stonehenge Apartments 
might imply a warning and the possibility, if threatened, of 
their turning hostile. 
It has been suggested that the entire enterprise involves both 
information - gathering and, at the same time, a "consciousness




 

raising" effort by subtly imparting the idea of their presence to us 
"mere Earthlings" without unduly alarming us. If this is their goal, 
they are achieving it remarkably successfully. The Gallup Poll on 
the subject of UFOs shows that a constantly rising proportion of 
the population accepts the possibility that we are, indeed, under 
extraterrestrial surveillance. No one I know has yet panicked from 
the widely published accounts of UFO activity, Orson Welles and 
his War of the Worlds notwithstanding. 

The North Hudson Park landing received a great deal of press 
and television coverage following my rather detailed piece in The 
Village Voice. Frank Gonzalez, the Wamsleys, George O'Barski, 
and other witnesses were interviewed by various TV crews. (The 
case itself, I must point out, involves additional UFO incidents 
which I have not gone into here. Ted Bloecher's excellent and 
thorough two - part series in FSR2 should be consulted by the interested 
reader.) One high point of the television coverage was a 1976 
talk show hosted by Stanley Siegel and shown over New York 
City's Channel 7. The guests were Dr. Robert Jastrow of NASA's 
Goddard Lab; Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut who headed the 
second moon landing; Dr. J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO 
Studies; and witnesses Betty Hill and George O'Barski. After recounting 
the events of that night in North Hudson Park, from the 
moment his radio ceased playing to the almost unbelievable sight 
of the UFO lifting - off in near silence, George was faced with this 
problem: Stanley Siegel, apologizing in advance for the question, 
said that his viewers would demand he ask it. "George, did you 
really see these things you've described? Do you have a drinking 
problem? A history of mental illness?" Was this witness telling the 
truth? 

There was a pause and George leaned back in his chair, and 
spoke slowly and directly. "I always figure like this: if a man, as I 
have, has lived a reasonably honourable and decent life for seventy - 
three years, he isn't going to do something that's crazy, and in 
one wild burst destroy his whole life's history and decency. " 
There was no studio audience that day, but the cameramen and 
technicians nodded and smiled at one another, responding with 
genuine warmth to George's unmistakable integrity. 

I noticed one additional thing; when Stanley Siegel asked 
these questions, George never for an instant mentioned the fact 
that there were other witnesses, that William Pawlowski independently confirmed the landing. He declined, one might say, to borrow 
from another man, and defended his account on the sole 
grounds of his own truthfulness. 

At the time of the North Hudson Park investigation, neither 
Ted Bloecher nor I knew very much, first - hand, about abduction 
cases. It occurred to both of us, however, that there was a nagging 
time problem in George's account. If the UFO incident spanned 
only three or four minutes, and George arrived home at roughly 
three A.M., then he couldn't have left his Manhattan store until 
two - fifteen to two - thirty A.M. The twenty - block drive from his shop 
to the Lincoln Tunnel, and then along Boulevard East to the park, 
can hardly have taken more than, say, twenty minutes at that time 
of the day. 

George closes his store at midnight, but hardly ever works as 
long as two and a half hours before heading home. He has also 
mentioned to me that he has, from time to time, a sense of having 
been "told" something by the silent figures, something he cannot 
grasp or remember. I suggested one day that he think of undergoing 
hypnosis to see if there might be a part of his experience that 
has been deliberately blocked from conscious memory. "No, sir," 
he answered. "When the doctors put you under, you're out there 
somewhere and you may never come back." I told him about a 
witness who was currently undergoing hypnosis to recall a lost 
period of time in a similar case. "How's he doing?" George asked. 
"He's finding out some fascinating things, but it's been emotionally 
draining for him." George beamed at my answer. "You see what 
I mean? I was right. You'll never see me getting hypnotized!" 

The essential deduction to be made from the North Hudson 
Park landing is not that it, too, could possibly involve an abduction. 
It is that we have an example - a vivid example - of the freedom 
of movement enjoyed by a UFO craft, a freedom which suggests 
just how widespread such abductions could be. We are not 
limited to dark country lanes and isolated Nebraska farms. One of 
the witnesses to a related sighting near North Hudson Park on 
Boulevard East reported a brightly lit, windowed object just over 
the top of the Palisade. He stopped his car and got out to watch it. 
The UFO then moved off towards the George Washington Bridge, 
and instantly all of its lights blinked off. He watched the dark mass 
speed away, a nearly invisible blot in the night sky. The UFO that 
George watched land might have blinked off its lights, and there 



 

could easily be a more complicated scenario here than any of us 
imagines, though it will forever remain speculation. I have only 
raised the issue to demonstrate the complexity of the problem. 

Very recently I was in George's store and we were having a 
rather philosophical chat. "You know, Budd," he said, I'm not a 
religious man. My wife was religious. But I'm getting on, and I 
figure I haven't got a lot of time left, so I think about it. I figure if 
there is a God, and I face him sometime, I'll just say, 'Lord, you 
didn't give me all the brains in the world or all the advantages, but 
I did the best I could with what you gave me.' And I figure he'll 
have to accept that. And if he does, I'm gonna say, 'O.K., Lord, 
here's one I want to ask you. Who were those little guys I saw in 
the park that night? Where are they from? Are you their God, too, 
or what?' " 



next chapter,

A SHARP RIGHT TURN ON THE NATIONAL Road.


Nat everyone having a close encounter with a UFO is as 
uninformed about the phenomenon as was George O'Barski, who 
had to ask me one day what the initials "UFO" stood for. When 
Ted Bloecher, in January of 1978, introduced me to Steven Kilburn,
1 he explained that he and Steve originally met at a Fortean 
conference, a gathering held by enthusiasts of the writings of 
Charles Fort.2 Like Fort in his day, they remain dedicated to the 
study of various strange and unexplained phenomena, including 
UFOs. At the time, Steve was an undergraduate at the University 
of Maryland, but when he moved to New York and married, he 
phoned Ted to re - establish their friendship. Ted invited him to an 
informal meeting of UFO researchers at my studio, and there we 
met. 

Steven Kilburn is a shy, intense, and haunted man. He is 
young - not quite thirty - and strikingly attractive; in fact, more 
than once he has turned down invitations to make modeling his 
career. Instead, he is dedicated to a career in the arts, the study of 
which he supports by his nine - to - five job. His shyness and seriousness 
are captivating, accompanied as they are by an understated, 
natural honesty and directness. At our meeting, he was 
content to listen, making very few contributions to a general discussion 
of recent UFO cases. But through it all, one felt that things 
were percolating inside him, and shortly I came to realize that he 
was, for no immediately apparent reason, uneasy. 

From his Fortean connections and his friendship with Ted, 
Steven was acquainted with the basic shape and complexity of the 
UFO phenomenon, though he had read very little of the literature 



 

or the specific case material. By the time he had attended two or 
three of our rather sprawling, unstructured gatherings, he had 
heard some talk about the use of hypnotic regression in suspected 
abduction cases. One night early in 1978, as a meeting was breaking 
up, Steve stopped me in the downstairs hall. He has a way of 
shifting about nervously, his eyes fixed shyly in middle distance, 
and then suddenly raising his eyes to meet yours in a steady, 
pleading gaze; the effect is riveting. "There's probably nothing to 
it," he said, "but something may have happened to me when I was 
in college. I can't remember anything specific, but something has 
always bothered me about a certain stretch of road I used to pass 
through whenever I left my girlfriend's house in Maryland. I don't 
know if there's anything to it, but I think there may be." 

I asked if there had been a UFO sighting connected with his 
experience. "No, that's just it. I can't remember anything specific, 
but I just feel something happened to me one time when I was 
driving home." It cost him a great effort, I knew, even to bring the 
matter up, but especially to make a request. "Sometime, whenever 
there's an open appointment, I'd like to try hypnosis, just to see if 
there's anything to my feeling after all." 

The next day, when I talked to Ted by phone, I mentioned the 
conviction in which Steve had described the uneasiness he felt 
whenever he was on that particular length of highway. At this 
point in our understanding of abduction cases, we accepted the 
Hill case and others like it as a general model. Though witnesses 
might realize that there had been a period of unaccountably missing 
time they would still consciously remember having seen a 
UFO and/ or occupants. The surrounding circumstances would 
have high definition; only the abduction itself would have been 
blocked from conscious memory. What could we think about a 
man who, practically speaking, remembered nothing whatsoever 
of the experience, and who had nothing more solid to go on than a 
deep - seated fear of a certain stretch of highway? It seemed an 
almost ridiculously flimsy pretext for entering into the costly and 
time - consuming process of hypnotic regression. And yet Steven 
was, himself, a special case. If anything, I believed, he was the 
kind of man who would naturally downplay his feelings rather 
than artificially exaggerate them. Ted and I weighed the various 
factors involved and decided that the situation should be explored. 


Towards the end of 1976, I had met Dr. Robert Naiman, a 
psychiatrist who occasionally uses hypnosis as a therapeutic technique. He is very experienced in this method, having employed 
hypnosis for over fifteen years to help some of his patients overcome 
smoking addictions, problems of overeating, and so forth. In 
one interesting case he told me about, the patient of another psychiatrist 
could never remember his dreams, so for weeks he came 
to Dr. Naiman early in the morning, was hypnotized and instructed 
that he would be able to recall his dreams when he visited 
his analyst later in the day. This strange two - step process, he 
assured me, was ultimately successful. 

Dr. Naiman had very little information about the UFO phenomenon, 
and no really strong opinions about it one way or the 
other. However, he is a generous, thoughtful man with an inquiring 
mind, so the prospect of exploring the memories of UFO witnesses 
was evidently interesting to him. He agreed to give us some 
of his time, and we began, early in 1977, to use hypnosis in several 
time - lapse cases we suspected might be actual abductions. The 
results were fascinating and varied. In one case that is still under 
investigation, two young men and a young woman, driving near 
Kent, Connecticut, in September of 1973, watched a large, hovering 
UFO disgorge a series of individually moving lights at treetop 
level. The three then drove to the place where they had seen the 
lights glide down a hillside to a lower road. As they sat in their car, 
about twenty helmeted figures approached them, and the next 
thing they knew the figures were no longer there - and, somehow, 
two hours had passed! Under hypnosis, one man remembered 
nothing whatsoever of the missing time period; the second man, a 
Vietnam combat veteran, had a dramatic breakthrough, however, 
and recalled at least some of the startling subsequent events.3 

In another case, Dr. Naiman was working with a man who, he 
believed, had a serious memory block. In his second hypnotic session, 
the subject underwent a frightening physical paralysis of 
both arms, a symptom that has since been observed during the 
hypnosis of other suspected abductees. In fact, even when these 
subjects are brought out of their trance states the paralysis of 
hands and arms has lingered, sometimes for minutes, in a situation 
only slightly more disturbing for the subject than for the surprised 
hypnotist. 

In the spring of 1978, Bob Naiman introduced Ted Bloecher 
and me to psychologist Dr. Girard Franklin, a colleague he was 
training in the use of hypnosis. Since the demands we were making 
on Dr. Naiman were always at the edge of the unmanageable, 
he suggested that we ask Dr. Franklin to help with our investiga 

tions. And so it happened that in May a two - hour time period 
conveniently became available and we arranged an appointment 
for Steven Kilburn. 

Dr. Franklin was not curious about the UFO phenomenon. 
On the contrary, he was very skeptical, and so was hardly prepared 
for what unfolded. For that matter, none of the four of used, 
Steven, Dr. Franklin, or I - expected anything dramatic to 
occur. On the way to his appointment, Steve apologized to Ted for 
having inconvenienced all of us, since he felt there may very well 
be nothing specific behind his fear of that stretch of Maryland 
highway. Ted assured him, as I did later when I arrived, that 
whatever did or did not come out of it, the session would function 
as a kind of control, an experiment aimed at discovering if deepseated 
feelings of dread such as Steven experienced might indicate 
a buried traumatic event, or perhaps have come about for 
other, internal psychological reasons. Either way, an answer 
would be helpful. 

Dr. Franklin's office is on the ground floor of his Upper West 
Side Manhattan brownstone. After introductions all around, Steve 
sat down on the leather couch and began to detail the background 
of his feelings, while Ted set up his cassette tape recorder. There 
was a marvelously uncomplicated honesty in Steven's voice and 
posture as he spoke; his eyes were steady and met Dr. Franklin's 
scrutiny head - on. 

SK: 
Before I came to New York, I used to have a girlfriend 
, we're still friendly,  and I used to drive 
from Baltimore - it was Pikesville - to Frederick, Maryland, 
to see her. I would take Route 40 west, and for, I'd say, at 
least ten or fifteen miles of that road, it was very, very 
deserted. And very often I'd be at her house very late at 
night and come back, and it was very dark. The streets 
weren't lighted at all. And, ah - about - I'd say probably at 
least a year after I was seeing her, I was driving along the 
road from Frederick to Baltimore; I don't remember whether 
I actually saw something in the sky.. I believe I did - and 
it was there that I first felt that - something. I felt very 
strange, for some reason. I didn't know why. It was that 
feeling someone is watching you as you wake up, that sort of 
thing. I don't know whether someone was watching me or I 
was watching something strange. Whatever it was that particular time, I remember I felt that something maybe had 
just happened to me, or was going to happen, and it was this 
very weird feeling. Every time I passed that approximate 
area, I felt for some reason something right there had happened. 
And I really just put it out of my mind as a sort of 
a - an event I had experienced, or from reading some novel, 
or whatnot. But I always wondered if something really 
had happened to me at that time. 

Now, I can't say for sure, but I believe I was a little bit 
confused about the time, a loss of time on that one main 
experience I had. It's possible, of course, that I'm mistaken, 
but there's something about it that I've never quite understood, 
and I don't even know what - what questions to ask 
to find what answer I'm looking for, if that makes any sense. 
I never felt that way in any other place at any other time. I 
either have a very vivid imagination, or it was just a,    It 
was a very dark road, that was for sure, and it did occur to 
me as I was driving that this is the kind of place that something 
like that [a UFO encounter] should happen. This was 
part of my hesitation for - wasting your time. I hope I'm not 
doing that. 

GF: 
It isn't a waste of time, because if nothing happened, that's 
as informative as if something did happen, so don't worry 
about that. It's not a waste of your time - either way we 
would be okay. 

SK: 
Okay, that satisfies my,    Well, I remember various other 
details, if that's important. I believe I was driving my 
sister's car, which is a Toyota, during this particular incident, 
and I did not always drive her car. For some reason, I 
have a very strange memory of looking at the dashboard. I 
don't know if I was looking at the clock or not, but I do 
remember seeing it, and I don't remember why. 

HM: 
Do you remember any thoughts that you can elaborate 
on? 

SK: 
Well, I just remembered as you asked. I see my car pulled 
over to the side - 1 think it was the center; there was a big 
median, grass median - and I see me walking. I see the car 
at an angle, and I see me walking from the front of the car 
to the right, and I see a light - from the car - l think it's from 
the car, I'm not sure, and - 1 don't see me meeting anybody 
or doing anything, going any place, but I distinctly have the 
  
feeling of me being out of the car, and my car stopping, and 
again, this is something that flashed through my mind, like a 
memory, or - or a scenario that could have happened. 
And also, driving alone, it (the source of his "being 
watched") would have been to the right, overhead, whatever 
I felt was there over me, or possibly I was looking at it. 
It's just so very black, very dark, and it was a clear night, I 
think. 
GF: Do you remember what you were thinking about it? 
SK: I was scared. 
GF: You were? 
SK: Oh, I was scared. Yes. I mean, shivers down my spine, that 
kind of thing. Not - not petrified. But very scared. 
GF: Real scared. 
SK: Yes. In fact, I had the feeling of being trapped in my car and 
wishing I could go faster. 
GF: And get out of there? 
SK: Yes. And someone in back of me, with a faster car, that kind 
of feeling. Also, I have the memory of looking in the mirror 
to see if someone was looking for me. 
GF: It almost felt like there could have been? 
SK: Yes, like I was being watched, or followed, or something 
like that. The feeling, I think, to sum it up, was that I wasn't 
there alone. 
GF: Right. You had a sense of some presence, or something, of being watched, followed,  ? 
SK: Yes. And also some kind of feeling of power that somebody 
else had. These were feelings that probably went through 
my mind very quickly, but I had that feeling, and I'd be 
feeling it every time I passed this area. I distinctly remember, 
distinctly remember it once. I think it was the first time 
it happened. Also, I remember that driving on this particular 
patch of road, like on many highways, there was a kind 
of a large hill - like embankment, covered with grass, and I 
think there was a fence and trees; there were trees behind 
the fence. (Pause) I think that it was in front of me while I 
was driving. Must've been a long way off, because I could 
see my headlights getting lost in the darkness - ! couldn't 
see the road ahead of me. Again, I don't know if this is my 
imagination, after this many years. And if I were to hazard a 
guess, it would probably be two or three in the morning. It's 





just a guess. It's like it had gotten a little bit chilly. I think I 

had a light jacket - ! can't say for sure. I think the rest of it 

I'd just be guessing. 
GF: Would you feel ready now to try the hypnosis part and try to 

see if we can make anything out of it? 
SK: Okay. 
GF: All right. How would you feel about lying down? 

Steven made himself comfortable and Dr. Franklin began the 
process of inducing a trance state, but at this point a slight technical 
error occurred. The tape recorder had been placed on the floor 
near the couch, but we discovered later that for some reason it did 
not pick up Steve's very quiet voice with enough volume for us to 
distinguish his words. Luckily, however, when it came time during 
the session to turn the tape over, Ted repositioned the machine 
and the later, more important part of the hour was successfully 
recorded. 

Initially, Steve talked about being in the car, driving home, 
and feeling drowsy. He described opening the window to freshen 
the air, and at one point bending down towards the dashboard for 
some reason. He told of his car stopping and of his confusion 
about what was happening. 

He lay absolutely motionless in a deep trance state. His voice 
was soft and his words slightly slurred as he described standing 
alongside the car and looking uneasily towards the metal fence. 
There was a long pause and he seemed afraid to go on with his 
account. He was obviously confused and frightened. Suddenly, he 
cried out as if in pain. "It's on my shoulder,    a clamp,    it 
hurts. I can't move!" Dr. Franklin tried to soothe his fear, but then 
a curious accident served to deepen his fright. A few feet away 
from the couch was the doctor's automatic phone - answering machine, 
which at that moment intercepted a call; it made a sudden 
loud click and Steven literally almost leaped a few inches off the 
couch. He cried out again. His fear was palpable; his voice conveyed 
panic, and tears flowed down his cheeks. Dr. Franklin took 
immediate measures to calm him, assuring him that he was safe 
and that he would be able to tell us exactly what was occurring. 

Earlier in his instructions, he had explained that Ted or I 
might also occasionally question him, so now, after the tape was 
turned over and the recorder moved closer, Ted took up the dialogue. 
, 



 

TB: 
Are you still standing next to your car, Steven? 

SK: 
Yes. 

TB: 
Can you see what's on your shoulder? 

SK: 
{Agitated] Yes. 

TB: 
What does it look like? 

SK: 
Big wrench. 

TB: 
Where is it coming from? 

SK: 
I can't tell. Uh . 

TB: 
Behind you? 

SK: 
(Agitated} Yes. It's long,    It's a big,    not a 
wrench,    uh 

TB: 
Grappling hook? 

SK: 
No,    uh,    no. A wrench,    it fits,    

TB: 
A wrench? 

SK: 
I, uh,    {Steven's body moved as if in pain.) 

TB: 
You say it fits up against your shoulder? 

SK: 
Yes,    it's,    uh,    yes,    

TB: 
How far down does it go? 

SK: 
All the way. A foot, on either side of my body. 

TB: 
How far? Down to your chest? 

SK: 
Yes. 

TB: 
Does it fit closely to your body? Or is it uncomfortable? 

SK: 
Yes. (Agitated] Yes. Uh, I think that it . 
did hurt.,    


{Inaudible). It 
TB: 
Are you trying to get loose from it? 

SK: No. I'm afraid! (Inaudible] There's light,    in that direction. 
TB: Is the light coming from your car lights? 
SK: No. (Frightened) No! There's something else. Something 

behind the fence! (Very agitated.] Oh! Oh! Black 


all 
dressed in black! (Inaudible] Can't see their faces. 

TB: 
Can you see how many? 

SK: 
Uh,  more than two,  three or more. 

TB: 
But they're on the other side of the fence? 

SK: 
Yes. I think they're waiting for something. I'm afraid! I don't 

know what's going to happen,   . Oh,    I don't know 
what's going to happen,   . I don't know what's going to 
happen! {Very agitated] Oh,    somebody's coming 
over! 

TB: 
They're coming over the fence? 

SK: 
Uh, I don't know. I think they might. 

TB: 
How tall is the fence? 





SK: 
Uh, higher than me. Six feet or something. They're right up 
against it. I think I hear their breathing or something 
, or sliding, or some kind of sound. 

TB: 
Hear that sound. Listen for it. Tell us what you hear. 

SK: (Inaudible.) My side hurts, my back. They twisted me back. I 
feel like,  my back,  I keep feeling it turning me, 
but I don't see anything. 
TB: Which way is it turning you? 
SK: To the right. 

TB: 
Is that toward the fence? 

SK: 
No. To the street. 

TB: Where are you standing in relation to the car? 
SK: Urn, within six feet. 

TB: On the side or in the front? 
SK: (Inaudible) left front. I keep seeing, uh, my sister's Toyota. 
That's the car. I keep seeing it. It's day. It's light. {Agitated.) 


TB: Is it day or is it just bright lights? 
SK: (Agitated) I'm confused. (Inaudible) it just,    It's close. 


TB: 
Go on. 

SK: 
(Frightened, inaudible.) 

TB: 
Is it on your shoulder? 

SK: 
It's long and brass. It's day,    but it's night. 

TB: 
Did you see anybody? 

SK: 
(Vehemently] I'm scared! It scared me. (Inaudible) I mean, I 
think he has something else. 

TB: 
Where was he, behind the fence? 

SK: 
I'm afraid! 

TB: 
He's behind the fence? Was he behind the fence? 

SK: 
He was. He climbed over and now he's on my side. He's 

very white. (Extreme agitation) Oh. Oh. Oh. 
GF: (An inaudible question about the figure.) 

SK: 
I don't know. I'm afraid. I don't want to look. 

TB: 
Is he close to you? 

SK: 
Not now. 

TB: 
Where did he go? 

SK: 
Oh! I keep seeing him coming over the fence. When I first 
saw him, it really scared me. 

BH: 
Was he your size? 

SK: 
Yes. No. No, he was smaller,    almost our size. It's 
his,    his hands (inaudible). Very white neck. Neck, 
head, face,    no hair. None on his face or his head. {Agitated.) Oh, I don't want to see him! Not like us. I don't want 
to see him. Every time I see him, it scares me. 
GF: Because he was so different? 
SK: Yes. Uh,    I don't think I really see him, but I do. 
TB: Does he touch you, Steven? 
SK: (Very agitated] Oh! I think he,  yes,  but not right 
away. 
GF: But he doesn't hurt you,    he just scares you. 
SK: Yes. 
TB: Did he say something to you? Does he speak to you? 
SK: No. (After a long pause) There's something. I,    I know 
there's something. They're coming for something. I don't 
know what they're doing. Preparing for something. Leather. 
That's what the noise is. 
TB: What is the noise? 
SK: Uh, gloves, or, or coats or something. It sounds like leather, 
like new leather gloves,    rubbing their hands together. 
That, kind of,    that's what the noise is. 
TB: Do you know where it's coming from? 
SK: The,  uh,  yes,  uh,  I'm scared,  they're 
moving,    against the fence. It's something behind,    
TB: How could the one with the white skin get over the 
fence? 
SK: I don't know. I don't see him coming over. They want something. 
I think maybe they want something from me. I don't 
know what they want from me. 
TB: (Inaudible question about the skin of the figures.) 
SK: Yes. (Inaudible.) It's still,    I'm afraid! He's, he's ugly. He 
doesn't have regular skin. It's, uh, funny skin. It's not like 
skin. 
TB: What (kind of skin) does he have? 
SK: Uh, it looks like putty or something. It looks like you could 
move it with your hand. 
BH: What color is it? 
SK: Whitish, like childish, whitish,    a little tint of gray in it. 
I don't know,    it's really weird. 
TB: Is it just his head that you see? 
SK: Yes. 
TB: This whitish color? 
SK: Yes. 
TB: What is he wearing from the neck down? 






SK: Black. A turtleneck or something. You can see his neck. It's 
the same thing. It's scaring me. 
TB: Is he standing in front of you? 
SK: Yes. 
TB: How close? 
SK: Very close. [Agitated) I'm afraid! 
TB: Does he raise his hands? 
SK: Uh, yes. [Inaudible.) 
TB: Can you see his hand? 
SK: {Long pause) I think so. It's the same as, uh, his face. Like 
putty or something. All the, all the fingers are perfect. 
GF: {Inaudible question.) 
SK: Yes. Scared me with his fingers. 
{At this point, GF begins his instructions to bring Steven out 
of the trance. It was clear to us all that his ordeal should be 
broken off.) 

Over an hour and a half had passed since our appointment 
began. As Steve rubbed his eyes and came back to full consciousness, 
a profound sense of shared relief flooded the room. After 
some final reassuring words from Dr. Franklin, we left his office 
and wandered down Columbus Avenue towards a cafe, moving as 
if the three of us were still a little stunned. When we were seated 
at the table inside, we ordered three richly desired drinks and 
began trying to understand what we had learned. 

One of the most persistent misconceptions about hypnosis is 
that once the subject is no longer in a trance state he or she immediately 
forgets the content of the hypnotic recall. On the contrary, 
the subject remembers exactly what has transpired, and usually 
with great vividness. Stage hypnotists - the kind, unfortunately, 
many of us are most familiar with - as part of their act often give 
their subjects some kind of silly post - hypnotic suggestion: "When 
someone says the word 'cat,' you will stand up and sing 'The Star-Spangled 
Banner,' " or some such. Then the hypnotist gives the 
additional instruction that the subject will not remember anything 
that occurred during the hypnotic trance. This artificially induced 
amnesia is essential to their act. The volunteer is brought out of the 
trance, returns to his seat, and hears the hypnotist say the word 
"cat." To his amazement and humiliation he finds himself on his 
feet singing the national anthem. This kind of performance has led 



 

many people to assume incorrectly that hypnotic subjects 
normally do not remember what transpired during the trance 
state. 

Steven Kilburn remembered more, perhaps, than he would 
have wished. Though he was thoroughly shaken by what he had 
re - experienced, he was also actually relieved to know that there 
had been a cause, after all, for his peculiar dread of that specific 
stretch of Maryland highway. He was precise when we questioned 
him about the clamp. Its edges were rounded. It was metallic, 
and it fitted over his shoulder from behind, holding him immobile 
and turning him around painfully. We attempted a few 
sketches, but he did not want to deal with the faces of the white skinned 
creatures. We knew - all three of us - that we were only 
at the very beginning of a search to uncover all the details of that 
night. This first hypnotic session had ended only when Dr. Franklin 
saw that Steven was undergoing so much obvious fear and 
physical discomfort that to extend H would have been unthinkable. 


I went home full of an odd kind of sadness and sympathy for 
Steve. What was going on? Nothing that he remembered about the 
UFO encounter implied deliberate malevolence, but the fear and 
pain it engendered were devastating. Certain details stayed firmly 
fixed in my mind, the description of the creature's skin, for example. 
"He's very white,   . Neck, head, face,    no 
hair,   . He doesn't have regular skin,   . It's not like 
skin. It looks like putty,  like you could move it with 
your hand." 

In the months to come, I was to see that image reinforced. 
Travis Walton4 published an account of his Arizona abduction 
and described his captors in strikingly similar images: 

"They were a little under five feet tall. Their thin bones 
were covered with white, marshmallowy - looking flesh. When 
they extended their hands towards me, I noticed they had no nails 
on their fingers. Their hands were small, delicate, and without 
hair on the backs of them. Their thin round fingers looked smooth 
and unwrinkled." Steve Kilburn's rather cryptic observation took 
on meaning: "All the fingers are perfect," he had said at the end of 
his hypnotic session. 

Steve's Maryland encounter happened in 1973. Travis Walton 
was abducted two years later, in November of 1975. In October of 
that year, two young men from Norway, Maine, had a similar 





encounter and under hypnosis one of them described their captors 
this way: 

"It looked like skin, but you know how somebody was indoors, 
say, a year, a year and a half, how it would look? It looked 
really white." His image of their overall effect is precise: They 
looked "like a mushroom."5 

On March 18, 1978, Bill Herrmann experienced a two - hour 
time lapse while standing outside his home in Charleston, South 
Carolina, observing a UFO. Hypnosis revealed another classic abduction. 
The figures were very white - skinned, "the color of a 
marshmallow," he recalled.6 "Their eyes were dark with a brown 
iris. They have large heads,    without any hair." In 1953 Gerry 
Armstrong, twelve years old at the time, experienced a similar 
trauma.7 Under hypnosis for the first time very recently, he said 
that "the two that took me to the ship are a little taller than I am. 
They have, is it, whitish - gray skins?" The list of examples can be 
extended many times over, but centrally important is the sense 
one has of honest, frightened people trying to be as precise as 
possible about what they saw. They were taken by humanoid 
creatures whose skins were whitish - gray in color and disturbingly 
soft looking, like a mushroom, or a marshmallow, or like putty. 
These three images denote consistent textural, coloristic, and kinetic 
qualities, all apart from the repeated description of the figures 
being between four and five feet tall. 

Air Force Sergeant Charles L. Moody described his August 
13, 1975, abductors vividly, adding a detail that we shall encounter 
many times again. They were between four - feet - eight - inches and 
five feet tall, had heads larger than ours, and "there was no hair, 
no eyelashes, no eyebrows,    the skin was whitish - gray in 
color." But this skin, Moody said, was "almost like a 
mask,    you know,    if you just had a face - lifting job or 
something like that. "8 

When I talked to Steven a few days after the session at Dr. 
Franklin's, he told me that he was calm about his experience, and 
that he was trying to put it out of his mind. He was definitely not 
eager to resume the hypnotic process for the time being. It was the 
end of May, and following our usual practice, my family moved, wife, 
daughter, houseplants, cat, art materials and myself - to our 
summer house on Cape Cod, where we lived and worked until the 
beginning of September. Ted continued to see Steve from time to 
time but it was not until December 1978 that Steven decided he 
was ready once more to try hypnosis. 



 

This seven - month gap between hypnotic sessions presented 
us with an unforeseen advantage. Steven had never heard the 
tape recording we made of his first session, nor had he seen the 
transcript. Apart from two or three days immediately after his May 
hypnosis, neither Ted nor I had talked to him in any detail about 
the events he had recalled. We were therefore in an ideal position 
to see if any new material that might surface would dovetail with 
what we already knew, or instead might in some way contradict it 
and thereby cast doubt on the accuracy of Steven's recall. 

In the months since the session with Dr. Franklin, Ted and I 
had met still another psychologist, a charming and incisive woman 
of Greek - American background whose exotic name never fails to 
elicit surprise. In a world full of Marys and Bettys, when people 
ask Dr. Aphrodite Clamar how she came by her first name, she 
looks them straight in the eye and says, "My parents gave it to me," 
thereby invariably laying the matter to rest. Dr. Robert Naiman 
originally met Dr. Clamar at a party and happened to mention that 
a group of UFO researchers he was acquainted with were looking 
for a female psychologist versed in hypnotic techniques. Our 
problem had arisen because a woman who had been abducted in 
April of 1977 near Tucson, Arizona, had agreed to undergo hypnosis 
only if the psychologist were female.9 Her experience, parts 
of which she recalled consciously, evidently contained events that 
were unnerving in a particularly intimate way, so this shy, fiftythree - 
year - old woman requested a psychologist of her own sex. 
For a complex series of reasons, the hoped - for regressive hypnosis 
never occurred, but the situation nevertheless led to our meeting 
Aphrodite Clamar, whose subsequent help and cooperation have 
proved to be invaluable. 

The appointment we made for Steven was for December 1, 
1978. Ted had described to Aphrodite the obvious fear Steve experienced 
in his session seven months earlier and she adapted her 
technique accordingly. After conducting a short interview, she led 
him into a deep trance state and gave him as a protective image a 
"warm, solid house to stay within, safe from everything threatening, 
but from which you will be able to watch any events which 
might unfold outside." 

She carefully established this imaginary refuge. "There is a 
wooded area, a wooded area of your choice. There's lots and lots 
of land. Sit yourself in such a way that you can look 
out. . " and then she led him back to his experience of 
1974. 





AC: Do you see a car? 

SK: Yes. 

AC: Let the car drive up,    see where it's going. 
SK: Yes,    I'm going fast. I'm very tired. That's all I want to 
say. Yeah, I'm really tired. Sleepy. Yeah, that's all. 

AC: Had a long day? 
SK: Long day. Really sleepy. It's late. 


AC: Is there a clock on the dashboard? 
SK: Yeah, but it's not working. I turn the light on in the car to see 
something. And then I turn it off. I think I have a watch on. 
Yeah, I think I do. 

AC: Do you see what time it says? 
SK: No. I'm not looking at it. But the light was on in the car just 
for a minute. {Long pause, and then with a less drowsy 
voice:) I think I'd gone off the road just onto the shoulder 
, and that wakes me up. Going down a big 
hill. Yeah. Big hill. Really going fast. I'm reaching down for 
something. I dropped something, or I'm adjusting the seat or 
doing something,   . That's when I see the light go on. 
I'm leaning forward to do something. Down on the 
floor - something. I'm reaching with my right hand . 
, Yeah,    I don't know what it is. It's dark. There's 
almost no other cars on the road,   . I'm all alone in that 
whole - well, in my direction. {Long pause) I just want to get 
home. (Another long pause) Oh, no! What's happening? No! 
I don't want this to happen! 

AC: (Asks an inaudible question about what he sees.) 
SK: Oh! I don't see anything on the road. I don't see anything at 
all and the right part of the car turns violently, and I'm 
going pretty fast but it jerks to the right. Really hard, and the 
car doesn't skid. It's like a huge magnet just sucked it over to 
the right! I have to stay away from the car (in his recall] and 
I feel better. 'Cause then I'm not in it. When I'm in it, it 
really scares me. (Steven pauses and then resumes.) We're 
coming,  coming over to the right side of the road, the 
car's pulling over and I feel like somebody's looking over 
my right shoulder,   . I don't see anything there in the 
back seat,    but it's scary in the car 'cause I don't know 
what's going on. I'm confused. Why did I pull over? I don't 
see anything. I just pulled over. And there's the 
fence,  trees. One really big tree, and I hear the rustling 
of the leaves because of the wind. There's kind of a ditch. 




67 

And it's going to the right, way up high, over the highway, 
over the trees, and it's going kind of slow,    and I didn't 
know what it was. It was moving fast, but not that fast. I 
don't hear anything,   . Two lights, kind of diagonal to 
each other. One to the right and the lower to the 
left,  they're whitish, with kind of a haze around them. 
I see a shadow of something,  they go to the trees to the 
right and they disappear in front of me. Right in front of me. 
As I'm coming down the hill. And I finally get to about the 
spot where I think it would be, and I pull over. No! 
Ah,    I don't really want to go over there but I,    I 
don't know. It was really violent the way the car went to the 
right. Yeah, hard. On the wheel. Hard. A really hard right. I 
thought it was dangerous. 

When I first saw those lights, they were more than a 
mile away, and the sky was dark, but not that dark. I could 
see clouds. Dark clouds, and the sky was lighter. Yeah, the 
sky is lit and that must be the moon behind the dark 
clouds,    almost directly in front of me, slightly to the 
left. And the moon isn't that high. 

I'm back over looking at the fence. I still am,  I 
don't know what. No. I just,    I don't want to look down 
there. I'm going to be really scared if I go over there. I am 
curious to see what's going on. I don't really expect to see 
anything. And then I remember driving home. Yeah, just 
driving home. And I'm OK. Back in the car and driving 
home. And I don't want to remember. I'm not supposed to 
remember. 

AC: 
Who said you're not supposed to remember? 

SK: 
Just,    not. I just know I'm not. (His voice is tense, anguished.) 
It's really serious! I might die. I mean, I know I 
won't, if I remember. But I feel really, really afraid to see. I 
believed it then, but I don't believe it now. I'm just 
scared,   . 

At this point, there is a slight break in the recorded continuity 
as the tape ends and it is turned over. As this was being done, 
Steven's fear abated, and he began to speak in a slightly different, 
firmer tone of voice, repeating the sentence, "There's nothing to 
be afraid of," several times. It was eerily as if the calming words 
had been delivered by an outside source. 



68  

SK: There's nothing to be afraid of. There are these things 
standing around me,    and, uh,    there's nothing 
to be afraid of,   . I keep looking over the 
fence,    there's something back there. I think there's a 
field or something they came from. It's really quiet. There's 
that light back of me,    again. And it's light now. It's not 
like it's dark; I mean, it's light all over that area. And my car 
is still there,  partly lit in front. 
And there's one,    at least three,    in front of 
me. And they're,  uh,  really strange,  and I 
am scared. {Deep, agitated breathing and slight moaning.) 
I'm not supposed to remember. There's one,    he's boss. 
He's the boss. And one of them is doing something in back 
of me, over at the right,  bending down and doing 
something. They're interested in me. I'm not scared now. 
There's something over on the fence to the left. And I see 
that leathery stuff again. I remember it. Like a black leathery 
, like a breastplate or something,  or a chest. I 
hear it, too. It's like leather rubbing,    sliding against 
leather, but not real thick leather,  kind of sticky and 
thin. It looks like that, but it's not real shiny. And I don't 
know what it is. I think I also see dark arms and gloves, but 
they aren't all black. 
These things in front of me aren't black. They're 
not supposed to, I see the faces and they're 
white,  chalky,  ah,  they look like they're 
made out of rubber, or,    ah,    not rubber, ah 
,   what do you call it? Putty or something. Like an artist's 
eraser. That's what it is. It's like a big,  and they're not 
shiny at all,  really a dull finish, kind of chalky and 
white, only not pure white. They touch me. And it hurt. I 
don't know what they want. And this one is motioning to the 
others with one of his arms. It's got some kind of suit on. I 
don't know whether it's part of him or it's a suit or what it is. 
It doesn't look like skin. Every time it hurts, I see these fingers. 
Those fingers I remember. They're,    ah,    like 
tubes. That's exactly,    they're tubes. White plastic 
tubes, only,    yeah,    they touched me. They didn't 
feel hard, though, but they looked hard,  they were 
kind of shiny. 

They're small. Below my shoulder,  that height. 





We're standing there. I don't know what we are doing. 
They're doing something. Digging. The one is digging. 
The,  boss there is motioning to this one in back of me 
to dig or do something with his left hand, and he is pointing. 
I think he means to hurry up or something, and the one is 
bending down,   . He's got something,    I can't really 
see it,    and he's digging a hole. Not a deep 
hole,    he's just kind of poking, sort of. He's bent down 
on his right knee. The dirt's kind of grayish,    right off 
the side of the highway,  next to the car; in 
fact,    just a few feet from the right front wheel of the 
car. 

I don't get the feeling that he's real strong,   . I don't 
know what he's digging for,   . One of the others is 
watching. I think they're four. Four or five. We're all just 
having a good old time standing there. I don't know what 
we're waiting for. 

He's kind of crinkly,    whatever he has on 
, legs and top and everything. He's skinny,  really 
skinny. I don't think he'd weight very much. In fact, he'd 
probably weigh,    not even fifty pounds. 

The intense fear Steven had experienced earlier seemed now 
to have melted away. He appeared tranquil, as if he were enjoying 
these outrageous circumstances in a thoroughly detached manner. 
 - Some of his comments were punctuated by small, ironic chuckles. 
It was hard for me not to conclude that Steven had been artificially 
calmed somehow at this point in his encounter. 

SK: 
I'm wondering when another car is going to go by. I can see 
us just standing out there. I'm not really afraid, though. The 
boss there,  his eyes are really shiny. They look black. I 
don't see any pupils or anything,    and they're big. His 
head is not round, it's like, uh, an inverted teardrop. With 
a big round bar on top. He looks like he's not 
alive,    maybe just because I can't really understand 
what he is doing or what he is thinking or anything,    it's 
like everything's very stilted,   . He's not very comfortable 
there,    he doesn't want to stick around. He's not 
telling me, but it's obvious. He wants to leave, I think, more 
than I do. I think he wants me to tell him something or help 
him or something. Why me? He'd have to pick on me. It 



AC: 

SK: 

 

figures. I don't feel that tired anymore, though. I don't understand. 
He wants something from me. I don't understand 
what it is,   . 

I want it to be over. I want the whole thing to be over. I 
mean, I'm not sure. I'm not believing what I am seeing at 
all. I don't,    ah,    there's no way to explain it away. 
I've been aware that I can't do what I want to. They've really 
got something on me,    and I don't know what it is. 
They can just make me do whatever they want. 
They're,  understanding each other, but they're not 
talking. I don't hear anything. 
Do you think it's mental telepathy? 
I guess it is. 'Cause they're somehow understanding each 
other. There's some conflict, I think. I don't think they're 
getting along so great. (Chuckles.) I think there's an argument 
about something cause this boss wants one thing and 
one of the other guys wants something else. I think they're 
arguing about a place,    about where to dig. And the 
boss, there, is pointing - this is it. And the other guy is pointing 
over toward the fence there, over to the right where it's 
dark. 

It's very bright. The light is coming from something in 
back of me. Brighter than daylight. It's really harsh light, but 
it's not in my eyes. It must be in theirs. That's why I see the 
reflection. Yeah, there's something really shiny coming off 
this character's eyes. It's almost like they're black and endless. 
Like they're liquid or something. But they're perfectly 
shaped. They're really kind of walnut - shaped. Not perfect 
circles, but almost. I keep looking at these eyes looking at 
me. God. I feel like I'm under a microscope. But he doesn't 
really,    I don't think he really cares about me. I don't 
think he's really concerned about what I'm thinking. 
They've got it all figured out. 

He moves like a,    like,    he's standing still, but 
when he walked, it was almost like he had two really bad 
knees. He was hobbling almost,  shifting his weight to 
the left and right. Almost rocking back and forth. And he 
drags his feet a little bit. I mean, I don't know whether 
they're feet or they're boots. They're almost white. They're 
not like his head, his face. They're shaped like cat's eyes, 
very almond - shaped. I don't see any toes or anything, but 
the almond shapes are pointed in the front and the back so 
that, ah, they're kind of club feet. Yeah. Skinny ankles, legs. 
Really skinny. Not bony, nothing like that, but he's so little. 


And I think he's just as interested in me. No, I mean, I 
don't feel threatened at the moment. I'm kind of looking at 
his feet and he kind of looks back. Just to sort of check on 
where I am. Make sure I don't go anywhere. 

Arms, too, really skinny, like he has no biceps. He's got 
almost no shape. He's kind of straight down, kind of almost 
flat. I'm really afraid to look at him. I don't want him to 
think I'm being aggressive. 

And, ah, his shoulders,  they're really square, but 
they're really small. Skinny. And he has a neck, but it's 
small, like the rest of him. Skinny. His chin is really pointy, 
too. I don't see any ears, although there's something there. 
There's a slit where his mouth should be, but it's not 
open,    just kind of across. He absolutely does not 
change expression. I'm kind of,  I feel like,  if only 
my friends could see me now! I don't think,    but it's 
O.K., I can handle this. I'm doing O.K., just watching him. I 
look back at the car and now another part of the car is lit 
up,  the part of the right side of the car that I'm looking 
at. Yeah, the light's all over. Then he looks over, the boss 
there, he looks over my head, 'cause it's something moving 
down. There's a light moving or something moving that's 
really bright,  and the shadows change. 

That guy is still digging. God, what is he digging for? 
He's digging with something he's got in his hands. It's not 
easy for him. I'd offer to help him, but I have the feeling it 
would cause problems. And then there's another guy in 
front of him, watching him. They all look kind of alike. I 
mean, they're all small and whitish and not real coordinated. 
They're kind of fumbling at things. I think he's having 
trouble digging. God. I mean, talk about an unlikely 
place to dig. It's right near the road. Not even a field or grass 
or anything. Just ugly, blackish, grayish dirt. It's getting 
deeper. He's digging a hole. He sure is. Yeah, it's like a foot 
deep. I can see that. He's still digging. 

At this point, it was obvious to the three of us that, despite his 
deep trance state, Steven was resisting moving ahead in his narrative. 
He seemed to be deliberately avoiding any recall of what 



 

happened next, and was, in effect, marking time by dwelling on 
details of the moment. Ted signaled Dr. Clamar and she began to 
bring him out of the hypnotic state, assuring him that he would 
easily be able to integrate these newly conscious memories into 
the texture of his life. It had been a long, illuminating session, 
though the tension had been emotionally draining. 

Today's most important revelation was the sense we had of a 
consistent, though still - unfolding, sequence of events. Seven 
months before, we knew that Steve's car was stopped alongside 
the road, and that he had stepped outside of it, a piece of the story 
to which I will attach the letter "B." Letter "A," how the car came 
to stop in the first place, we had not known until today, accompanied 
as it was by his description of the involuntary swerve at high 
speed, as if "a huge magnet just sucked it over to the right." As he 
stood by his car, "C" occurred - he saw and heard the still - mysterious 
black leather objects. And then "D" - the approach of the 
white creatures. Interestingly, in today's retelling he did not include 
their actual arrival on the scene, an obviously extremely 
frightening moment which he had recalled vividly in the earlier 
session. This time, he began with their presence as a fait accompli 
and coupled it with a new detail - the repeated, calming message: 
"There are other things standing around me,    there's nothing 
to be afraid of." This situation, "E," immediately follows "D" (their 
arrival]. 

Steven moved on to "F," the episode of the figure digging 
while he was somehow held motionless. "G" we will designate as 
the placing of the clamp on his shoulders, another part of the story 
omitted here, and obviously another particularly terrifying memory. 
So, one could say, his first hypnotic session dealt with "B," "C," 
"D," and "G". Seven months later, we learned of "A," some new 
details of "C," and "E" and "F," a perfect narrative dovetailing. 

On a smaller scale, other revelations served to illuminate a 
few unexplained and dangling memories from before. In May, 
Steven recalled bending down - perhaps to turn on the car's interior 
light - for a reason he could not supply: "I have a strange 
memory of looking at the dashboard. I don't know if I was looking 
at the clock or not but I remember seeing it, and I don't remember 
why." In his later session, this apparently inconsequential act was 
again described: I'm reaching down for something. I dropped 
something, or I'm adjusting the seat or doing something 
,   that's when I see the (car) light go on. I'm reaching with 
my right hand." Minutes later, the significance of his move came 





back with a shock: "I know! Oh, God!,  I see two lights in the 
sky when I'm driving. I'm hunched over, looking up. It's a reflection 
in the windshield and then I turn the light on to see if it's still 
there. And it is,   . " Steven's recall was so vivid because it was 
the moment he first saw the UFO flying overhead. His instinct was 
to try to convince himself it was only some kind of reflection, but 
his flicking on the interior light told him otherwise. 

A few days after his appointment, I phoned Steve to ask how 
he was, and what he was thinking in retrospect. I told him that it 
had seemed during his hypnosis that he was reluctant to move 
ahead in his recall. "That's true," he said, in his characteristic shy, 
understated tone of voice. "I didn't want to go any further. I'm 
afraid the worst is still to come." The hypnotic process apparently 
contains its own built - in safety valve; subjects usually recall only 
what they can handle comfortably at that moment. There seems to 
be a careful, unconscious doling out of disturbing material, and 
despite moments of near panic, such as Steven experienced during 
both sessions, the mind is able, self - protectively, to shut off the 
flow. 

At this point in our investigation, Steven Kilburn's account 
paralleled many other abduction reports, such as the Betty and 
Barney Hill case, in precise ways, but there was one basic and 
striking deviation from the model. In every case I had ever heard 
about, the witness or witnesses consciously remembered at least 
seeing a UFO. The odd circumstances - such as a period of lost, 
unaccounted - for time - that accompany such a UFO sighting are 
what alert investigators to the possibility of an abduction. Steven 
had !lathing more to go on than a vague feeling that something he 
could not remember happened to him one night on a particular 
stretch of highway. Since beneath these feelings there turned out 
to be, indeed, a UFO abduction, how could one guess how many 
other abduction experiences lay buried and ticking within how 
many other unconscious minds? The prospect was staggering; if it 
happened once, it could happen ten thousand times and no one 
would necessarily ever know! 

Months after Steven's second hypnotic session, Ted Bloecher 
told me about a California case that had recently surfaced. It had 
not been made public, and he had only learned of it through private 
communication with one of the investigators. On Nov. 26, 
1972, a young legal secretary named Judy Kendall10 and her sisters, 
Danon and Becky, visited their grandmother in the town of 
Bodega Bay. They left at six P.M. for the two - hour return trip, and 



 

arrived home at midnight - four hours late. Their parents had already 
called the state police, fearing their daughters had been 
involved in an accident. The girls had no explanation for their 
delay, though they reported a peculiar detail: Danon and Judy 
both remembered driving over the same bridge twice, but in the 
same direction! They passed the flashing yellow light at Cash 
Creek bridge, continued on their way, but felt confused as to 
where they were or what was happening. Then they passed the 
same flashing light and re - crossed the bridge, and shortly thereafter 
arrived at home. There seemed to be no explanation. They 
definitely weren't lost, since they knew the territory well. The car, 
for that matter, did not have enough gas for a six - hour drive. The 
strange episode was put aside by all three women until a sequence 
in a movie three years later re - established the incident. Judy was 
watching "Escape to Witch Mountain," and at one point in the 
film an "RV" - a van - supernaturally lifts off to the sky. Judy felt 
oddly uncomfortable, recalling the sensation of being in her own 
car and somehow floating. Her sister Danon, sitting beside her in 
the theater, felt the same unease. It was clear to both of them that 
this disturbing half - memory was connected with their peculiar 
experience in 1972 when they lost four hours driving back from 
Bodega Bay. 

Again, Judy put the mystery out of her mind until 1977 when, 
after visiting a friend near Yolo, California, she sighted a UFO on 
her way home. It was a typical distant "nocturnal light." When she 
told her friend about it, she was urged to report it to the Center for 
UFO Studies. Her friend asked if she had ever figured out what 
had really happened in the "lost hours" incident five years earlier, 
and when Judy said she still did not know, the friend suggested 
she also report this episode. Dr. Hynek at the Center was curious. 
In 1977, Judy was hypnotized, and the story that emerged was similar 
in many details to Steven's. The first odd thing that she 
recalled was her car somehow not responding to her control, but 
moving of its own accord, as if it were not actually on the ground. 
Later, this dialogue ensues: 

Dr. McCall: What can you see? 
JK: I think I see a,    transparent head - shape thing 


with funny - looking eyes. I don't want to see it! 
Dr. McCall: Why don't you? 
JK: It scares,    
Dr. McCall: What's happening now? 





JK: (Sobbing) Coming towards,  me. It scares me! 
Dr. McCall: Where are you, Judy? 
JK: I don't know! I don't know! I'm scared. I don't want 


to see it anymore! 

Dr. McCall asked her to describe her captors' heads. "They 
look like ordinary people's heads, but they don't have any hair. No 
hair anywhere. Their cheekbones are funny - looking. (Their skin 
is) kind of white and milky,   . I don't remember seeing a 
mouth,   . I don't see any ears,    all I see is holes,   . " 
Inside the UFO, Judy recalled seeing three distinct types of creatures, 
one of which, a woman, seemed entirely human. The description 
immediately above, taken from the transcript of her hypnosis, 
describes what seems to be the same white - skinned, hairless 
type that Steven remembered. 

At the time I first heard about the Kendall case, its most striking 
similarity to Steven's was the fact that neither Judy nor Danon 
(Becky apparently was asleep throughout the encounter) had any 
conscious recollection of a UFO sighting. The Kendall and Kilburn 
cases, one could guess, came to light only because of an 
unlikely series of accidents: Steven's chance meeting of Ted 
Bloecher, his relocation to New York, etc., and Judy's having seen 
"Witch Mountain" and later having a UFO sighting, which she 
reported to the Center. The unmistakable deduction to be drawn is 
that we had happened to notice the tip of the proverbial iceberg. 


Other similarities between the Kendall and Kilburn cases 
eventually came to light, but there is one detail that should be 
mentioned here, and that is the question of the two automobiles 
appearing to be under external control. In hundreds of UFO encounters, 
drivers have reported that their electrical systems have 
failed and their engines have died, only to come back on as if by 
magic when the UFOs depart. More startling still are the reports, 
which probably by now also range in the hundreds, of automobiles 
literally lifted off the ground and moved, with driver and 
passengers inside. Steven could not understand how his car, travelling 
downhill at about seventy miles per hour, could make a violent 
right turn without rolling over, moving as if "sucked by a giant 
magnet." 

Betty Hill, under hypnosis in 1964, described her experience 
this way: "We're driving along on a tarred road and all of a sudden 
, without any warning or rhyme or reason or any




 

thing,  Barney made a,  he always,  the brakes 
squealed, he stopped so suddenly and made this sharp lefthanded 
turn off the highway,   . "In a case I investigated in late 
1978, two nurses in central Tennessee were stopped late at night at 
a village traffic light. A large domed craft landed on the road 
ahead of them and D.S., in the driver's seat, was startled when her 
vehicle began to move without her "pushing gas or anything 
,   or accelerating the car." They travelled about five 
hundred feet before the car halted "all of a sudden, and the motor 
just kind of stopped."11 In another episode, Sandra Larson12 and a 
friend were abducted in 1975. Under hypnosis, she said that, 
when the UFOs (there were several) landed, the car stopped automatically, 
and that she had the sensation of floating. "I saw the car 
being brought right up to it. Like the car was pulled." 

A witness in an Alaskan case noticed that her car was driving 
itself. She could neither guide it, nor accelerate, and they proceeded 
for many miles at twenty - five miles per hour, a period 
during which the car apparently used no gasoline.13 

Less lucky were the terrified women in the Casey County, 
Kentucky, abduction of January 6, 1976. The three friends noticed 
a blue light behind their automobile just as it began to escape 
their control. The speedometer was registering eighty - five miles 
per hour, though the driver had her foot off the accelerator and 
was crying for help in steering the car. The women experienced a 
burning sensation in their eyes, followed by more excruciating 
pain, and then the inexplicable sense of their car being pulled 
backwards. When they finally reached home, they discovered an 
hour and a half of missing time, and through hypnosis their abduction 
and "examination" aboard a landed UFO was uncovered. 

If an abduction case contains, let us say, one hundred separate 
bits of information, probably eighty of them can be found in 
previously investigated cases - but twenty "information bits" will 
be new. The phenomenon repeats itself, but never exactly. The 
shapes cohere, but without forming an identical pattern, and in a 
strange way these new details add credibility to each case. 

Getting through to buried traumatic material by means of 
hypnosis is usually a time - consuming, laborious undertaking. Dr. 
Clamar has described the process of slowly uncovering the core 
memories as being a little like peeling an onion - layer upon layer 
must be patiently stripped away. By the fall of 1979, Steven had 
consciously recalled a few later events from his experience, including 
the sense that he had been examined by his captors inside 




77 

the UFO. From the moment he first realized that his encounter 
had included an involuntary physical examination, he had avoided 
pursuing the matter through hypnosis. So reluctant was he that 
he was not ready to explore it specifically until January of 1980 in 
his fourth hypnotic session. (The third session, in February of 1979, 
was recorded by an NBC film crew and will be discussed in chapter5; 
it did not reveal many incidents not already known from the 
two earlier hypnotic regressions.) 

In the fourth session, Dr. Clamar instructed Steven to imagine 
himself in a spacious movie theater, feeling relaxed and very comfortable, 
and about to view film concerning his experience on the 
Pikesville road in Maryland,  an experience which affected 
his shoulder. 

His memories began as he stood beside his car, facing his 
white - skinned captors. His nervousness was palpable, and the 
first image clearly frightened him. 

SK: When I first see it, it scares me. All by myself. That's why 
I'm hesitating. 
AC: (Reassuringly] You can watch as much as you care to 
watch. Turn it off whenever you want to. 

SK: 
[Chuckles.) I may not be watching it today. (A long pause 
follows.) I see the,    uh,    I don't know what it 
is,    a long clamp kind of thing. And there's a joint in the 
middle like an elbow, almost like an arm, and 
it's,    around my shoulder. And I see it just, just holding 
me, over my right shoulder. It's connected to this,    I 
don't know what this is,   . It looks like a saucer 
,   that's what it looks like. It's whitish. And it's sitting 
on something,    looks like it's white also, a kind of platform. 
It looks like an erector set or something,  some 
kind of girders, criss - cross,  latticework,  it sits on. 
Like an egg sitting on it, and, uh, I see the car. 

(Deep sigh) It's holding me,    if it grabs me, I 
feel,  it hurts my back, my lower back on the right 
side. 

AC: 
(After a long pause.) What happens next? Films have a continuity, 
Steven. (She prods his memory very delicately.) 

SK: 
They're watching me now. They're standing there watching 
me, and the one guy starts motioning,  now starts walking 
past me, on my right, and he goes in back of me 
and,    uh . 
.. (sighs] and he's looking inside the thing, 



AC: 
SK: 


AC: 
SK: 


 

and he turns me around slowly. I don't think I could move if 
I wanted to,    that thing is really on my body. And he's, 
uh, just standing there, and I'm turned now, looking at the 
thing. And he's looking inside and it's dark. I can't see 
what's in there. My back hurts. 
Breathe into your back. You can make that pain disappear 
,  . {Dr. Clamar instructs Steven in ways to overcome 
the pain.) 
{After a long pause) They want me to come in. It's a 
ramp,  a little ramp. He wants me to walk up before 
him. And,    I think there's some kind of noise. I'm not 
sure I even hear it. It's like,    it's coming from the thing, 
whatever it is, the saucer. I think the whole thing is vibrating, 
but it doesn't look like it's moving. It's like a very, very 
quiet hum. Uh, the thing pushes me in. [Chuckles.) You'd 
think they'd realize I was going,   . 


And, uh, now he's alongside me at my left, and there's 
a passageway,   . It's round, almost like a tube we're 
walking through. The thing's not on my back anymore and 
I'm very relaxed. 

They're not going to hurt me. I want to look back, but I 
feel like I'm almost paralyzed. It doesn't hurt, though. I'm 
just very relaxed, very calm. We make a right turn. It's funny, 
this thing didn't look that big from the outside. Didn't 
look like there was that much room in it. 

And now we're coming back. [Chuckles.) I think we 
went the wrong way. Now, he,    I don't think he knows 
which way to go,  what to do now,  and he looks at 
me. I wasn't looking at him. {Sighs.) I'm not really afraid of 
him, but I'd like to know what he's thinking. Now we go 
back, yeah, to that right turn where he turned me around. 
We turn around again,    we're in the passageway at the 
right and we go into a room,  

And the door closes behind us. This room, it's all white. 
It's almost the color of the outside of the ship,    whatever 
the thing is,    the saucer. It's,    Oh! My back! 
Just breathe deep into your back and the pain will diminish 

[etc.). 
(Shouts) Oh! They put,  they put a thing on my back. I'm 
sitting on a table in the middle of this room. Oh! {Arches 
back, as if in pain.) Oh,  Oh! {Arches back.) When I 
think about what they did, it really hurts. 





AC: (Calming him again with instructions to overcome the 
pain.) 
SK: (Rapid breathing, obvious signs of distress.) This room is, uh, 
whitish. It's really big. It's curved on the inside,    the 
walls aren't,    I don't think there are any angles in the 
room. That's what it is. Everything looks kind of whitish. 
Even when I look at my own hands,    they look kind of 
whitish. It doesn't glow,   . These little guys,    there 
are two of them in the room,  the one other,  oh, 
no, there are a few others over there against the walls, circled 
around. There are two guys who seem to be running 
the show. One is,    the guy who came in with me, and 
they're, uh, they almost blend in with the white. I almost 
want to say that the air in the room is white also. Something 
strange about the color of everything. I don't know how to 
describe it,  everything is kind of milky or misty or 
something. It doesn't shine, but everything has almost that 
metallic kind of glow to it,  including me,  as I look 
at my legs and,    I don't know where my clothes went. 

(There is an obvious gap in his recall at this point, between his 
entering the room and finding himself nearly naked, seated on 
the table.) 

AC: What are you wearing? 

SK: It looks like a wrapped diaper of some sort,    very soft. 
It's wrapped in a criss - cross. There's a thing over my 
head,    it's coming out of the ceiling. It looks like it 
should be made of metal or something, but I can't tell if it is. 
It looks kind of like something I saw in a planetarium. A big 
thing. It has a kind of bulbous head on one end. It looks like 
a big insect. It's about twice the size of me. It's nine feet long 
or so, and maybe three or four feet across. It's really intricate. 
There are all kinds of little,    it's a gadget, whatever 
it is. (Chuckles.) At one end, there's like,    I don't 
know if it's a needle,    it looks like a fancy ray gun of 
some sort. I don't know what it is. 
And it's. like, on a pivotal point in the center of it, so it's 
suspended in the center. And it turns down by itself; they 
don't touch it. It turns so the needle part is pointing down 
towards me, and that's what runs along the bottom of my 
back. And I'm just sitting there, and when they put it against 



AC: 
SK: 


 

my back - 1 don't know whether they're sticking something 
into my back, but it hurts. That's what hurt before. 

And the guy who brought me in is just sort of watching 
everything. He seems to know what's going on. The walls 
around the room are curved, so the inside of the room 
would be the shape of a saucer. Even the ceiling is curved. 
It's like a big oval. Yeah, the room is a big, circular, flattened - 
out oval. It has a really calming effect, being in this 
room. {Chuckles.) It's almost like being hypnotized. This is 
really,    you almost feel as if you could float. It's very 
peaceful. 

And there is not a sound. Nothing. I think it's the quietest 
place I was ever in. This table is so,    I don't know, 
it's like it grows out of the floor. It's perfectly smooth. The 
same color. There are no drawers or anything. No cabinets, 
no handles. Nothing. It's just like a pillar. And,    it's a 
perfect temperature, so I'm perfectly comfortable. 

It's a flat kind of thing on the end, yeah, that's digging 
into my back. Whatever they're doing there,    it's feeling 
the bone. On my back. [Sighs.) Just touching my back. I don't 
know what it's doing there. It doesn't hurt now,    it's not 
a needle. Feels like it would be almost as wide as my hand 
if my hand were flattened out. 

And, uh,  they take it off and it hurts when it 
comes off. And the thing goes back up into the ceiling. It's 
still up there, it doesn't go out of sight or anything. I can look 
straight up,  directly over my head. In fact, I feel a little 
bit dizzy. My back hurts a little bit. All this time I've been 
sitting with my legs over the edge of this,    I guess it's the 
doctor's table. [Chuckles.) It's one doctor's office I didn't 
have to wait to get into, I guess. 

Now I'm lying down on my right side. It's kind of 
a,    Oh! My back hurts. It's,    soft, where I put my 
head down and it moved up. The table itself moved up to 
support my head. It's very comfortable. Almost like a cushion 
or something. [Inaudible.) They're taking the thing I'm 
wearing off. 
[Inaudible question.) 
The other guy who was in the room when I walked in. And 
he's [lifting?] it up with his hand. I didn't know they did 
anything with their hands. And it slides against my 
leg,    {inaudible]. These two are talking to each other,    I mean, or they're communicating with each other, 
'cause there's something going on between the two of them. 
They're looking at each other,    Oh! Why are they waiting 
until it starts hurting to (inaudible}. They're awfully interested 
in my back. I'm just lying there now, 
just,    waiting for what's next. 

I think the joy has gone out of this relationship. It's not 
that interesting anymore. Uh,  (sounds of pain). That 
thing has come down and it's pushing against my back 
again. It's pushing,    at an edge,    pushing against 
the lower,    oh,    whatever they hit,    uh,    it's 
a version of the old hit your knee and see if it jumps up in 
the air,    'cause that's what my right leg did. (Chuckles.} 
They're testing my reflexes. (Sighs.} It hurts when they do it, 
too. Kind of a sharp edge. Oh! (Sudden cry.} That only 
makes my right leg twitch,  wherever they're hitting, on 
my back. Oh,    (sighs},    No, I'm really not that 
thrilled with being there now. I don't think they really care 
whether it hurts or not. And I,  my back itches. I can 
feel it now. It itches now, too. 

AC: 
Continue to breathe deeply,   . (Instructions to calm the 
pain and end the itching.) 

SK: (Inaudible) I'm lying there. My back is just kind of in dull 
pain,    and,    uh,    I think the guy who brought 
me in, the leader, I think he's getting impatient. He's kind 
of,    he turns to look at where we came in. That's why I 
think a door must have closed or something, 'cause I don't 
see a door there or anything. It's just all smooth. 
There are a few other characters in this room also, 
there are like one, two, three, four, five,  there are 
about five or six of them, 'cause they're kind of scattered 
around against the walls with their hands behind their 
backs. (Chuckles.} They look like guards or something. I 
don't know what they need guards for. I'm sure not going 
anywhere. Especially the way I feel. 
It's kind of a light now, out of the ceiling, out of the 
center. It's coming actually out of the center where this big 
device is hooked up. And it shines on me. Kinda warm. 
Feels good. It was getting a little bit cold in there. It feels 
good now. My back feels better, too. 
Now it hurts,    hurts again. (Winces.} They want me 
to turn over,  on my stomach. And, uh, I don't think 



 

they're going to miss anything,  they're going to get me 
from all angles. {Sighs.) I'm really getting bored being in 
there. I want this thing to be over. Whatever they plan to do, 
do it. Get it over with. 

I feel something touching that spot where it itched. I 
don't know,    what,    I think it's the mark on my 
back that they want to look at. To see what it is, I think. I 
think I have something on my back, some kind of a mole or 
something. Yeah, they're touching it. 

AC: 
How does it feel when they touch it? 

SK: 
Uh, it's hard. I mean, his finger, or whatever he's touching it 
with, is hard. Yeah, I think,    {chuckles). He sure is looking 
closely. He's leaning over, and his head is 
like,    strange the way his head turns down. I didn't notice 
any of them do that before. It's like on a joint or something 
, his head is very,  and I do see his neck. I 
didn't know he had a neck {chuckles), but he does. It's a 
little skinny thing. But he turns and it's just like,    I think 
his neck can bend,    it's strange. Anyway, he's looking 
,   he's really getting close to my back. 

AC: Where on your back is it? 
SK: It's on the right side, a little bit lower than the middle, and, 
uh, he kind of pushes on it and it hurts a little. 
AC: What does his finger feel like as it touches you? 
SK: Very solid. It's heavy. 
AC: Does it feel warm? 
SK: No, I don't feel any temperature. I mean, it must be the 
exact same temperature as my body, or something, 'cause I 
don't feel any difference. It's very hard. Like, uh, just the 
way it looks. It looks like hard plastic and it feels hard. I 
don't know how he could possibly feel anything with a hard 
finger like that. 
Oh! He had some kind of,    {chuckles),    pushed 
at it with his finger,    on the edge. That's funny, when 
he touched it, the little thing on my back, it hurt farther 
down. 
AC: Where does it hurt? 
SK: Farther down, where, my back hurt, where that thing was 
hitting my back and hurting,    lower. {Sighs.) Now he's 
just pushing on it, pushing down on it. I think he just wants 
to feel it. I don't know what the great fascination is. 
It's strange, but what I can't figure out is he's so short 



and this table sits up really high. And yet when he leans 
over to touch it he can look down on it. I really don't understand 
how he can do that. It doesn't make any sense to me. 
I'm trying to look down at his feet but I can't see them. He 
must be standing on something, is the only thing I can think. 
(Chuckles.) Unless he's floating. (Chuckles.) Maybe he is. 

Oh! He pushed that spot on my back with his hand. He 
should leave it alone. It hurts. 

The other guy, the boss there who walked me in, now 
has his back partially turned. Maybe he can't stand the sight 
of blood. I keep getting the feeling that my back is open, but 
there's no blood. Or that it's not cut or anything. I get the 
feeling that they're looking inside of it. 

My leg, my right leg especially, going down my right 
leg, it feels a little bit numb. Also like it's falling asleep. And 
the pain goes up my back, the right side. 

Now, it's my stomach. This thing, uh, they turn me on 
my left side now and I'm lying on my left side. My stomach 
hurts. Right side of my stomach, almost right on the opposite 
side of where my back hurts. A dull pain. Sort of a stomach 
ache. 

I'm getting sleepy there. I don't know whether they're 
doing it or if I'm just getting sleepy. Yeah, I'm really comfortable. 
(Sighs.) Awkward position to be lying in. I'm lying 
on my left arm. My arm is straight down along my side. 

Something is poking my stomach. I mean, not poking 
into,    on the outside it's poking. (Chuckles.) I keep 
thinking an X - ray would be quicker. Ah. Clamp. Kind of 
like the thing that was on my shoulder, only it's rounder, it's 
on my hip, my right hip. That's what,    (Very short break 
as tape is turned over.) 

Oh! A rod now, it's just poking into my . 
.. (chuckles). 
I can see the color of this. This is dark, this is like a dark 
gray. Just poking it up against, like almost tapping, really 
, it comes from that thing. That thing has come down 
again, and I see it's like a rod, it's like a wand, tapping 
against my stomach, slowly. I see it sliding back and 
forth,    tap, slowly it moves back, tap, and it pushes 
against my stomach. 

It,    almost looks as if it's made of lead. It's almost 
that color. I don't see any lines or anything. It's perfectly 
shaped. Cylindrical,    kind of very skinny, though. And 



84  

it's flat on the end. Not hollow. Sure is poking into my stomach, 
though. Right on the,  [sighs),  on the side. 

I'm looking back at that other guy standing there, the 
one who brought me in, and I see the back of his head, 
now,   . It's almost perfectly round. Ugly little thing. And 
I think there's a line. I don't even know if that's skin on his 
head. A very, very faint line like a ripple,  like a seam. 
[Chuckles.) Right down the middle. I can't tell if it's skin or 
something he has over his head. It fits well, though. [Chuckles.) 


He has the tiniest little chest. I can't see any ribs. 
Just,    there's no muscular definition or anything. He 
turns around, and he sees I'm looking at him, and I don't 
think he's too crazy about the idea. [Chuckles.) So I look 
away. 

The supervisor in this room is the other guy, though. It's 
like he's the boss and he just took over once we got into this 
room. 

That thing is gone, now. The thing moved up into the 
ceiling and the light isn't on me anymore. And I'm lying on 
my back now. I do that myself, though. I knew they wanted 
me on my back and maybe they just let me do it,    instead 
of forcing me. Now the,    our doctor,    I don't 
know what else to call him,    he's coming over and he's 
looking at,  that spot on my stomach. It tickles a little 
bit. [Chuckles.) He feels it. A little sensitive. Still don't understand 
how he can be looking down,    he's so short. 

I almost feel, lying there, I'm almost high, just a little bit 
dizzy. But I'm very relaxed. I feel like a frog. [Chuckles.) 
Now there's a metal thing comes up around both my legs. 
It's very skinny. Moves my legs apart a little bit. It's almost 
, a,  comes right up under my legs as high as it 
can go. And they want to feel what's on my skin. My right 
leg,    moves my right leg all the way up - that's why I 
feel like a frog. The doctor now touches my skin under 
that,  my leg,  inside my leg,  it feels,  I 
got goosebumps a little bit. It feels kinda rough. Anyway 
,   he's certainly interested in it. He goes back and 
feels my stomach again, the spot on it,  on the right 
side. 

My right hand is now paralyzed. I want to move but I 
can't. My left one is just relaxed, but my right one 





isn't,    it's falling asleep, there's no feeling in it. Now my 
left one's getting numb. It's happening fast. It starts from 
the - God, it happened fast - it starts from the fingertips and 
it goes right to the elbows, right up to the shoulders. They're 
both totally paralyzed. There's no pain, though, I just feel 
that I have no feeling. 

God, I'm even more relaxed than I was before. (Sighs.) 
I'm almost asleep, but not quite. Now my legs. My leg is 
down again. The two metal things - ! saw the color, they're 
dark also - they come off and they're gone. I don't know 
where they went. My legs are now paralyzed. My back still 
hurts a little bit, though. I think they're trying to knock me 
out. They sure did it. 

This seemed to be a logical place to end the session, so I signaled 
Dr. Clamar and she began the process of bringing Steven 
out of the trance state. He was told that he would be able to integrate 
this experience into his life, that it would not cause him any 
difficulty, that he would be relaxed. Immediately upon awakening 
from the trance, Steve complained that his ears bothered him. He 
felt a peculiar pressure not unlike that experienced in an airplane 
during a sudden shift of altitude. It was an unusual reaction - one 
I had never observed before - but the problem was gradually 
eased by repeated yawning and swallowing. 

The hypnotic period had lasted for about an hour and had 
been filled with precise and fascinating new details, but it had 
been unnerving for all three of us. Steven and I said good - bye to 
Aphrodite and went out to a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue to 
talk further about what we had learned. These "debriefing sessions" 
 - to use the wooden NASA phrase - have always yielded 
important information, and the basic reason is this: as the subject 
in the hypnotic state re - experiences the encounter, he (or she) tells 
only what seems to be most "tellable" at the moment, what he 
judges to be most immediately significant. But other peripheral 
things are also being re - experienced, and it is only later, in a more 
leisurely setting, that these other, less obviously important details 
can be recounted. For instance, Steven now mentioned what we 
had perceived as a gap in his narrative. When he first entered the 
big, whitish room, he walked towards the table, which he said 
grew straight out of the floor "like a mesa," and which was about 
chest - high. The next moment, he was seated on the table nearly 
naked, and his clothes were nowhere to be seen. One can speculate either that he has repressed the disturbing experience of being 
stripped and lifted onto the table, or that he may have been, in 
fact, unconscious during that operation. My observations of the 
hypnotic recall of various abductees suggests that in almost every 
case there seems to be a period of missing time when the subject is 
probably unconscious, and thus unable, even through hypnosis, to 
remember anything. 

During a phone conversation two days later, Steve recalled 
some other details - particularly about the final moments of his 
"examination." The thin, round metal loops which raised and 
slightly spread his legs must have come up from the surface of the 
table. They completely encircled his thighs very high up - almost 
at the level of his hip sockets - and, the ultimate effect was to force 
him into a posture not unlike that which results from obstetrical 
stirrups. As he phrased it at the time, "I feel like a frog." 

He also mentioned a peculiar emotional reaction he had after 
he had relived this examination through hypnosis. "I felt embarrassed, 
somehow ashamed,  the way you would feel if you 
had flunked a test or something and tried to conceal it from your 
parents." He recalled that, when he came home that fateful morning 
in 1973, he felt physically dirty, and wanted very much to 
shower, though he was so tired that he gave up on the idea and just 
went to bed. He definitely had the sense that he had withheld 
some details of his ordeal from Dr. Clamar and myself, though he 
wasn't sure what they might be. "I really don't like to think about 
it," he said. I'm trying to put the whole thing out of my mind." 

One final detail, however, was particularly interesting. At 
some point towards the end of the examination, Steven said that 
the "doctor" held a whitish, cylindrical object "like a wand" in his 
hand. I asked how thick it was in relation to Steve's thumb. "Over 
twice as thick," he answered, and about seven or eight inches 
long. It appeared to be very heavy, and seemed to be regarded by 
the others as highly significant, "As if it were the most important 
part of the entire operation." For a short time, he recalls, this tubular 
implement with a rounded end was placed against his chest. 

As we shall see when we consider other abduction cases, this 
short, plain cylindrical device is indeed a ubiquitous tool. Sergeant 
Charles Moody, taken from his car near Alamogordo, New 
Mexico, in 1975,15 described being touched on his back by a 
"small, rodlike device" while sitting on a "slab like plastic or metal 
table which was like a solid block sitting on the floor." In the 





Casey County, Kentucky, abduction,1t:i Ms. Mona Stafford described 
while under hypnosis, lying on a white table while experiencing 
the impression that her right arm was somehow pinned or 
fastened and her leg was forced back under her rather painfully; 
similarly her friend, Ms. Elaine Thomas, recalled a "bullet shaped" 
object, about an inch - and - one - half in diameter, being 
placed on her left chest. Like so many other aspects of the UFO 
phenomenon, the patterns closely repeat themselves and the descriptions 
from case to case contain remarkable similarities. We 
have the data but lack the explanations, and it is partly my purpose 
in writing this book to stimulate others - psychologists, neurologists, 
physicists, statisticians - in fact, intellectuals and scientists 
of whatever disciplines, to examine the data and to begin the 
task of deciphering meaning. 

A few months before this final hypnotic session, I met a young 
neurosurgeon who was also an art collector interested in my work. 
A conversation in my studio one day led around to the subject of 
UFOs. He was immediately curious about my investigations, 
though he remained neutral in his judgement of the phenomenon. 
One evening we listened together to a tape recording of a hypnotic 
regression and he was struck with the obvious sense one has of 
hearing a believable person recalling a frightening and very real 
experience. I told him about cases I had uncovered involving scars 
on the bodies of UFO abductees. Screwing up my courage, I asked 
him if he would ever do me the favor of examining one or two 
people, just to see what could be deduced from the character and 
location of these wound traces. He agreed, out of a mixture of 
friendship and curiosity. 

Steven Kilburn's final hypnotic session had been so connected 
with the recall of what seemed to be a neurological examination 
that he became the logical candidate for the first appointment. 
Dr. Paul Cooper received Steven at his Brooklyn Hospital office 
about ten days after this last hypnosis. I was not present, but a few 
hours after the time of the appointment, Dr. Cooper called me. 

I've just had the spookiest two - and - a - half hours of my life," 
he told me. "Steven is a remarkable young man. He's extremely 
bright, an excellent observer, and totally believable. And really 
very, very decent,  a nice human being. I was spellbound. 
Everything he told me about what they did to him and how his 
body reacted accorded exactly with what should have happened if 
they stimulated the different nerves he said they touched. I tried to 



 

mislead him," Dr. Cooper added. "He said when they pressed 
here, and he indicated his femoral nerve, his thigh moved. I said, 
'Are you sure? Are you sure it wasn't elsewhere? He said, 'No, it 
was right here, I'm sure of it.' I'd insist it couldn't have been where 
he said, just to try to mislead him, but he would always stick by his 
memory of it. He exactly described the motor reaction that happens 
when the femoral nerve is stimulated. And he has no particular 
knowledge of the nervous system. He'd have to have known a 
great deal to make it all up, and I'm certain he's not the type to lie. 
He's a very decent guy, and I'm really impressed with him. It's 
remarkable, the whole thing. 

"He asked me what I thought they were doing when they 
went up and down his back with their machine, stimulating various 
nerves. I told him that it seemed to me they just wanted to find 
out how he worked." 

Dr. Cooper was unable, during the two - and - a - half hour interview 
and examination, to find any unusual scars or puncture 
marks on Steven's body. (The tiny scar near his navel could have 
had any number of causes.) But, then, Steve said it had only felt as 
if he had been opened up - he had never seen any blood or 
noticeable scar, and the encounter had happened seven years before. 
"I don't know what it all means," Paul Cooper told me, "but 
it's remarkable. Fascinating! Really fascinating." I had to agree 
that no one else knows what it means, either - not I, not Dr. Ciamar, 
not Ted Bloecher, and not even Steven Kilburn, and he was 
there! 



THE BLUE LIGHT IN 
THE PINE BARRENS 


Judy Kendall and her sisters, Barney and Betty Hill, Elaine 
Thomas, Mona Stafford, and numerous other people were, like 
Steven Kilburn, abducted from automobiles by UFO occupants, 
who somehow took control of their vehicles. But there is a second 
basic abduction scenario, one that is, if anything, even more disturbing 
to contemplate. Many people have simply been taken 
from their homes while they were either asleep or involved in 
some quotidian activity, like watching television or reading. On 
October 7, 1979, I received a phone call from a good friend of 
mine, a man I shall refer to as Howard Rich. He was very distressed 
about what had happened to him the night before, yet he 
was unclear as to why it had affected him so deeply. 

Last night, I was just relaxing and watching television. I was 
visiting my mother in Toms River, New Jersey, and I was alone in 
a groundfloor bedroom. About eleven - thirty or so, as I was watching 
this program, the room started to fill with light, very bright 
light, with a bluish tinge to it. It didn't seem to be shining in the 
window - it seemed to be there in the room with me. It got brighter 
and brighter, and then it began to diminish. The whole thing 
only lasted, say, about three seconds, but when it was over, it left 
me very frightened. I felt a deep sense of dread. It was really 
strange. I've never had anything like it happen before. 

I was really shaken. I got up and,  I keep a gun in the 
house. I found it and loaded it and went outside to look around. I 
was that nervous. I didn't see anything unusual, so I came back in, 



 

but I still couldn't settle down and go to sleep. I took a Valium, but 
I couldn't relax. I finally got to sleep, but this morning I just 

thought I should call you and tell you about it. 

Howard is a gentle and pacific man; I was shocked to hear 
that he owned a pistol, and even more so that he loaded it and 
went outdoors. I asked him how much time he spent outside. 

"Not very long,    four or five minutes, probably. I walked 
around behind the house and didn't see anything unusual." 

Just to double - check, I inquired if the same television program 
he had been watching was still on when he came back 
inside. 

"Yes, it was, I think. I'm pretty sure. There wasn't any time 
problem or anything like that. I don't think anything really happened. 
It was just that it was so strange, and it left me so,    feeling 
so nervous and apprehensive." 

Toms River is near Fort Dix, so I suggested he first call the 
police and report the incident, just to see if anyone else reported 
something similar, and then, I felt, he should call Fort Dix to 
inquire about any possible flare drops or nighttime military exercises. 
Finally, I said that he should ask his closest neighbors if they 
noticed anything unusual. 

Ironically, Howard's call came as Ted Bloecher and Patrick 
Huyghe, another UFO investigator, were in my studio going over 
with me the tape recording I had made of a recent hypnotic 
regression session involving still another abduction. I finished my 
conversation with Howard and relayed it to Ted and Patrick. I told 
them that I had been struck by his deep and continuing uneasiness, 
though there seemed to be no time lapse nor any other clues 
that might imply a more complex experience than he could consciously 
recall. 

Howard knew a little about the UFO phenomenon, but had 
no real sense of the abduction cases we were investigating. He had 
served in the Air Force for three years and had heard of a number 
of Air Force UFO incidents. The loaded gun, I found out later, he 
acquired when a job he held for a year or so involved his driving 
alone back and forth across the country, sometimes carrying a respectable 
amount of cash. 

I called Howard the following day to see what he had learned 

from the various lines of inquiry I had suggested. The local police 

had received no other reports of unusual lights or flares. When he 




spoke to the information officer at Fort Dix, he was told that there 
had been no nighttime military exercises of any kind. An interesting 
side - light here, however, was the way the information officer 
began to question Howard about what he had seen - almost, he 
felt, as if the officer had a prepared list of questions to ask anyone 
reporting "unusual lights." The neighbors also had seen nothing 
out of the ordinary, though they mentioned the fact that they had 
had an unusually restless night. 

A few weeks after his initial call to me, Howard and I were 
together at a dinner party. He mentioned again how unnerved he 
had been by the incident of the blue light. I said that, if he was 
curious, perhaps I could arrange an appointment with Dr. Clamar 
so that he could undergo hypnosis, and, at the least, he would 
recall all the details of his experience and would most probably be 
able to put the matter to rest. I honestly did not think that there 
was much to discover. I felt that the vivid light might have been 
some kind of half - dream in the mind and eye of a drowsy, late night 
television viewer. The only thing that I did wonder about 
was his intense reaction. On the stimulus side of the ledger, there 
wasn't much - just a bright, momentarily light - filled bedroom. But 
on the other side of the ledger, the response side, there was a very 
deep, very sustained, fearful reaction that did not seem to have an 
adequate cause. I should have known from Steven Kilburn's case 
that an intense reaction with this kind of vague stimulus is itself a 
definite clue, an indication that perhaps there is more stimulus, 
and that it has just been effectively blocked. 


On March 8, 1980, almost exactly five months after the incident, 
an appointment I had set up for someone else with Dr. Ciamar 
was canceled, and, almost on a whim, I called Howard and 
asked if he wouldn't be interested in taking it himself. He agreed. 
We went to her office by cab, talking all the while about everything 
except UFO's and the mysterious, light - filled bedroom. On 
the first appointment, Dr. Clamar usually conducts an informal 
interview with the subject to gather background information and 
to better understand his or her general character and psychological 
make - up. After this, she induces a trance state so that the subject 
can experience hypnosis in a relaxed and neutral way. Regression 
to a specific earlier event is something that is usually not 
attempted until the second appointment. 

Howard entered Dr. Clamar's office feeling somewhat apprehensive 
and nervous, but her direct and cheerful style immediately won him over. I waited outside during the obviously confidential 
interview. When she had completed the conversation and preliminary 
"trial run" hypnosis, she asked me to join them. Howard 
looked relaxed, though there was a slight cloud over his usually 
happy and open countenance. He is a youthful thirty - eight years 
old, tall, the kind of man women find very attractive in an easy, 
brotherly way. Prior to his interview he had told Dr. Clamar and 
me his story once again, and I tape - recorded it before leaving the 
room. 

It was in a place called Toms River, New Jersey, near the 
pine barrens, which is near Fort Dix, and it's kind of a strange 
place. I don't know how really to describe it, but it has a funny 
ambience about it,  at least, I feel it. I was staying at my mother's 
house. She has a condominium in a retirement community. It 
was a Saturday night, probably around midnight, and I was 
watching television and doing some reading. And I think I had 
maybe a glass of sherry, and I was tired. I was halfheartedly 
watching TV  - the TV was on the desk - there was a small light 
on the desk, probably a sixty watt bulb, in a pretty big room, so it 
wasn't very bright. There was one window in the bedroom that 
faces east. 

Suddenly, the room seemed to have an incredible, intense 
light in it, with a blue tinge to it, that built in intensity the way a 
strobe light would, but it was of longer duration. I'd guess it was 
almost three seconds. (HR is an accomplished photographer, so 
these descriptions and estimates are probably quite accurate.) It 
built, peaked, and then became dim again, and then the room 
seemed to be darker than it was originally, as if the bulb had gone 
down a bit, and I had an incredible feeling of fear and apprehension 
, and almost,  see if I can find another word to fit 
it,  but I guess fear and apprehension fit it best. And maybe 
it's my mind, but everything seemed to become very quiet at the 
same time. Do you know how, after an automobile accident, in the 
city when you hear cars crash, for a split - second after that everything 
stops? Well, that kind of sound happened, or lack of 
sound. There are always background sounds, woods sounds, 
animal sounds. 

But I guess there was a pause there, and I still had that feeling 
of fear and apprehension. I used to travel a lot and I kept a loaded 
pistol in the house, and for some reason I got the pistol and went 





out of the house, outside, looking around, because I felt there was 
danger out there. I felt it outside, all around,  all around the 
house there was this feeling that there was something there, 
or,  something happened. And I guess nothing happened. I 
didn't encounter anything. There was nothing out there, and 
eventually I came back in. I guess I was outside maybe four or five 
minutes, walking around the grass and woods. Then I went back 
in and I was still shaken. It took me a long time to calm down. I 
had another glass of sherry, and went to sleep about thirty 
minutes to an hour after that. And that was it. There was residue 
after that, the next few days. I still felt tense and apprehensive. 

After the session, Howard and I left the office and went out to 
the street in search of a cab. "Let's not walk so fast," he said to me. 
"The whole experience was very strange." I glanced at him and 
sensed his unease. "As soon as she had me in a trance, I suddenly 
had a flash of being back there at my mother's house, outside, and 
I just said, 'They're coming for me.' It frightened me. I don't know 
what it means. I didn't want to explore it, and she brought me out 
of the trance right after that. I did my best to assure him that it 
had probably been just a momentary flash of imagination; though 
it disturbed me, I thought it best, for the moment, to play it down. I 
was surprised that this had occurred without any specific instructions 
by Dr. Clamar for Howard to return to the past, to that night 
in October at his mother's house. 

On the way home, we talked of other things, but I did ask one 
specific question. The program he had been watching was "The 
Night Stalker," a one - hour mystery show. "When you went outside, 
after the program had been on a half - hour or so, you would 
have interrupted a suspenseful plot. Can you remember, when 
you came in, how close it was to the end? All those kinds of programs 
work up to the dramatic denouement, so it should be easy to 
remember how close you were to the end of the hour. 

"It's a funny thing, Budd," he answered. "The more I've been 
thinking about it, the more I think there was a different program 
on when I came back inside. I might have been out there longer 
than I thought." 

My feelings at this moment were unusually complex. Howard 
was not just a recent acquaintance, as were most of the other 
people I had dealt with in similar UFO cases; he was a good 
friend, whom my wife and I regard with real affection, and he was 



 

clearly troubled. The incident had happened not years earlier but 
only five months before, within the period of our friendship and 
his awareness of my interest in the UFO phenomenon. I was the 
first person he called the morning after, and it was I who suggested 
he pursue the matter through hypnosis. In some oblique 
way, I felt responsible for his dilemma. I found myself assuring 
him that there was probably nothing unusual behind the incident, 
that he shouldn't worry, and that time would undoubtedly reveal a 
logical explanation for the strange light and for his feelings of 
unease. But in my heart, I was afraid for him. The signs were 
beginning to accumulate. 

Sixteen days elapsed before Howard's next session with Dr. 
Clamar. During that time, neither he nor I mentioned the Toms 
River incident in any way and we referred to this forthcoming 
appointment as if it were a dental check - up or something equally 
routine. I didn't want to alarm him in any way nor to suggest that I 
regarded it as potentially significant. When I went to his apartment 
to meet him that Monday morning, we talked avidly about 
art and photography and women, as if to bury any apprehension 
either of us might have about the impending hypnotic experience. 
The taxi ride uptown was a continuation of our conversation, except 
that art and photography pretty much yielded the floor to an 
exclusive discussion of women. Sex is always a great attention fastener, 
and it was clear that neither of us wanted to think about 
the next hour. 

Dr. Clamar received us warmly and I began to set up my tape 
recorder. Just before Howard went into the office, he laughingly 
said that he thought the whole effort would probably turn out to be 
a waste of time. "We'll probably find out there was nothing out 
there but a couple of raccoons." 

When he stretched out on the couch, Dr. Clamar asked him, 
as she does routinely, how he felt after the last preliminary hypnosis. 
He told her that he became quite tense before going to bed 
that night, so he used the deep breathing mechanism she had 
taught him to help him relax. "I just put myself on that little indestructible 
cloud which got rid of the tension, and then I seemed to 
almost have a vision of being back in New Jersey again, and a very 
strange feeling again of being outside, and that was it." 

Dr. Clamar began the hypnotic induction using the image of a 
movie theater. Howard was told he will be comfortable, relaxed, 
and safe as he rests in a soft theater seat preparing to watch a film 




95 

concerning that night in Toms River at his mother's house. She set 
the scene: he is in his bedroom, it's late in the evening, and he's 

, 
watching television. 

HR: 
(Deep, irregular breathing.) It's on Channel 2, and it's 
a series with Darren McGavin,  a series called "The 
Night Stalker" at eleven - thirty,    it's a fantasy - horror 
,   kitsch - horror show,    but it doesn't seem to be 
on at eleven - thirty,    it seems to have started later 
,  . 

AC: 
Is it delayed? 

HR: Yes. I turned it on,    I was tired,    and I was watching 
it. 
AC: What are you feeling as you're watching it? 
HR: (Irregular deep breathing.) Tense. Tensely tired. And apprehensive. 


AC: 
What's making you feel apprehensive? 

HR: (Long pause) It doesn't feel safe. It's getting later. I 
feel,  tension and pain in my back and up to my neck 
and head. (Irregular shallow breathing followed by a long 
pause.) 
It's really bright. (Shields eyes with right hand and appears 
to be very agitated.) Incredibly bright. It's done something 
to me,  such a bright light. 
Getting up. And I take a loaded pistol from a drawer; 
and look out the window and walk out to the front, and I 
look outside and it's bright and quiet out there,    it's just 
the moon. Put a sweater on and walk outside. (Agitated.) 
Walk,    walk to the back of the house and look around. 
Look at the sky and look at the house and the ground. 
There's another bright light. 

AC: Where is it coming from? 
HR: It's,    it's trees,    behind the house,    (Agitated. 
Inaudible words.),    with a bright light coming out. {Covers 
eyes with right hand.) 
AC: Your eyes will become accustomed to the bright light and 
they won't feel so sensitive. 
HR: I drop the pistol. I remember dropping it. And I feel like I 
can't move. I feel like there's some people there,    
and,    
They're looking at me,    there are people 



 

there 
,   [agitated) and they're trying to move me. 

They're trying to move me, and I can't see it,    I can't see 

it, though. 

That bright light again. It's all around me. I feel like I'm 
floating. They're like dark black shadows in the light. 
There's light all around and the shapes are just 
black,    just black,    the shapes,    the figures. It's 
cold, too, It's very cold. {Shivers and crosses arms over 
chest. Agitated breathing, and then he arches his back and 
bends his neck as if in sudden pain.) 

Oh,    there's a pain in the back of my 
neck. Oh, God! It hurts,  it hurts,  Oh! 

(At this point HR's memory leaves this scene and shifts ahead to 
his return to the house.) 

HR: 
I think I'm back inside now. There's a different program 
on? A different program. 

AC: 
What's on now? 

HR: 
It's the late show,    it's a movie,    it's the second, the 
late, late movie on 2. It's two o'clock? It looks like two 
o'clock. And I don't remember,    coming in,   . I put 
the pistol down and clean it,  it must have been dirty 
, and I clean the pistol and put it away. 

AC: 
What kind of dirty was it? 

HR: I don't know,    fingerprints on the barrel or something, 
and it was wet,  it was wet. 
AC: Had it been fired? 
HR: No. No. I took the ammunition out. It hadn't been fired and 

I put the ammunition away separately. I always do that. It 
hadn't been fired. It hadn't been fired. I lay down to go to 
sleep,    turn the lights off. I'm frightened somehow. I'm 
frightened. Have a,  took a drink of cognac so I could 
sleep. I took a Valium. I couldn't go to sleep. There's blood 
on the pillow though, a little bit, a spot of red, a couple of 
spots of blood on the pillow. Some tiny spots of blood on the 
sheets when I woke up. I feel stiff and achey when I wake 
up. Ache in my joints. [Agitated breathing.) My 
shoulders hurt, my neck hurts. It still hurts sometimes. 
, [Sighs.} 

AC: Is there any blood on your body? Where did the bloodstains 
come from? 
HR: I don't know. I looked,    I thought maybe it was just a 
pimple or something. They were very small,  they were 




97 

just tiny spots,    just a few on the pillow and sheets. I 
couldn't see anything on my body,    I didn't.,    
Maybe it was a mosquito. There are mosquitoes 
,   [Sighs.) It's cold. [Shivers, folds arms over 
chest.) 

AC: 
Your body temperature is going to go up to normal and you 
won't feel cold any more. 

(HR shivers and sighs.) 

AC: 
Your body temperature will rise to normal. 

HR: 
[After a long pause) It's morning and I'm dressed. Walking 
around outside the house in the light, and it's late. I slept 
late. I don't do that too much. By eleven o'clock, I'm tired, 
really feel tired. And I'm walking around outside the house 
and the back and the grass. [Sighs.] I feel really apprehensive 
and strange,  and I go outside,  I feel silly and 
foolish. And I think I called Budd. For some reason, I feel I 
should call Budd up, and talk to him,  or talk to somebody 
, so I did that. Talked to Budd. And then he suggests 
I call the police and see if there are any lights or flares, 
Dix,    it's an army base nearby, and I call them and they 
say no, there were no lights or flares,  that night, and I 
talk to this officer who asked me lots of questions,  lots 
of questions. {A long pause ensues.) 

AC: 
What is your neck feeling like? 

HR: It hurts,    it's stiff,    there's a dull pain there. [Sighs.) 
I feel strange for a few days. I get in my car and I drive over 
to the base. There are a lot of back roads and pine forests, 
and for some reason in the late afternoon I'm driving 
around over there and just get out of the car at this spot and 
walk around, and I really don't know why I do that,    I 
just look around,    drive to another spot,    and look 
around. It's late afternoon, and sunset, and then drive back 
home. 
[Long pause. Sighs.) Looking for something. Looking for 
something. Something happening down there I'm looking 
for, there's something happening down there,    I can 
feel something happening down there. 
Oh! [Loudly, and then in a whisper) Something's happening 
down there. [Long pause.) 
Something in the face. And there's pain in my stomach, 



AC: 
HR: 


AC: 
HR: 


AC: 
HR: 
AC: 
HR: 

 

too. {Agitation. Long pause, and his recall moves to the earlier 
events of the night before.) 

They're coming for me again. 

It's,    my,    it's my,    my stomach really 
hurts,    it really hurts. [Inaudible words, then HR 
arches his back, stretching, as if in pain.) People are touching 
me. Why are they touching me? {Sighs deeply.) 
Oh,    I want to wake up,    I want to wake up. 
All right. Can you just tell me what's happening that makes 
you want to wake up? 
It's,    I'm on the grass and they're taking me into this 
black cloud. It's a black cloud, and a bright light comes out 
of it. It's really just a dream,    it's not happening 
,   it's,    
A bad dream. 
It's a bad dream. It's just a dream. It's so bright, though. It's 
so bright,    into this black cloud,    it's light and these 
figures are black,    and,    there's no shape to 
them,    and they're small,    just,    my body just 
moves. I didn't want it to move, it just moves. I didn't want it 
to move, it just moves into this black cloud,   . 
It's,    it's cold. I'm so cold. So cold, It's really,   cold. 
Let me get you a blanket. (Leaves room.) 
It's cold. [Shivers.) It's cold. {Sighs.) What are they doing? 
What is he doing this for? It's bright again,    
[Returning, she spreads a cover on him.) Here's a lightweight 
blanket. You'll be much warmer now. 
Oh,    it's cold. There are different lights now and 
they're all around the room and they're touching me with 
the lights. I'm floating,    it feels like I'm floating 
,   and,    and,    they don't say anything 
,  . I want to talk to them, but they won't say anything 
,   they won't say anything. 

It feels very pleasant,    it's soft and warm,    I 
feel very good. I feel very good. It feels all right now. Nothing 
happened. Friendly. 

I'm coming out of the cloud,  I'm walking out of the 
black cloud,  I'm on the grass,  again. Back into the 
house. I feel very tired,  feel very tired. {Sighs.) Oh! 
{Loudly] Oh! Oh. [Breathing eases.) It's all right now. Nothing 
happened. It's all right now. 





AC: Would you like to sleep a little bit? Take a little nap? 
HR: (After a long pause) All my energy,    they took all my 
energy. 
AC: Just take a short, five - minute nap, and that will energize 
you. It will bring your energy back, and refresh you. 

(HR breathes deeply, rests.) 

AC: 
(After a long pause) You will feel relaxed and detached 
from the experience. You will be able to see it well. Your 
perception will be good. You will feel detached. After all, 
you are in a theater watching this performance,  this 
movie. Let yourself have a flashback, a movie flashback, to 
the people. Can you tell me who they were, what they 
looked like? 

HR: (Suddenly, firmly.) No! No. No, I can't tell you that. No. No. 
(Whispering) No. Small. Black. Small. Bright eyes. {Agitated 
breathing.) I'm stronger than they are, though. (Whispering) 
I'm stronger than they are. They have no real will. They're 
frightened. 
They're frightened. I frightened them. I can feel it. 
They feel hollow and empty. They're like shadows. 
They look like shadows with eyes,  long 
arms. (Long pause. Agitated breathing.) They don't 
like sunlight. I feel that. They don't like sunlight. So small. 
They're small,    small. Cold. Cold, too. They're cold. 
Feel cold. 

(HR, still under a blanket, begins once more to shiver and clasp his 
arms to his chest.) 

AC: I'm going to touch your right hand with mine and you will 
feel warm again. (AC notes that his hand is actually warm.) 
It's much, much warmer now. Your body temperature is 
returning to normal. 
The lights are now coming up in the theater. The film is 
over. You are feeling very relaxed and very much in control 
of things. (AC continues her calming reassurances and 
brings HR out of the trance state.) 

Howard sat up, rubbing his eyes. He had been in the hypnotic 
trance for about an hour and he appeared haggard and worn. The 



 

tape recorder was still operating. There was a long silence and 
then I spoke. 

BH: 
You don't have to get up just yet. 

HR: 
I want to sit up. (Hand on neck, soothing it.) Oh! Whew! It 
really feels like it was wrenched or something. 

BH: 
Was there anybody near you when it happened to your 
neck? Where were they standing in relation to you when it 
happened? 

HR: 
I don't know,    I think I was floating somehow, and they 
were floating around, but I don't remember that. I just remember 
being touched. But that seemed to happen when I 
went out of the house. (Early in the encounter  - BH.) 

BH: The neck? 
HR: Yeah. 

BH: 
Did you drop the gun at that time? 

HR: 
I must have. I don't remember doing that. I felt like I had it 
with me all the time. And when I went back inside, into the 
house, I remember looking at it and it was damp and I 
cleaned it and unloaded the chambers, and it had six 
rounds in it. I always keep the ammunition separate from it, 
so I separated those six rounds, and it hadn't been fired. 
Whew! (Hand on neck again.) 

BH: 
When you went out driving around the next day, you don't 
remember anything happening then? 

HR: No. 
BH: It wasn't clear whether,    
HR: I don't think so, no, I don't think that anything happened. 
BH:,    because you said they're coming for you again,    or 
whether that was something connected with that other 
time. 
HR: I don't remember that. I think that it was just a bad dream 
(nervous chuckle). Or,    something happened. 
BH: What about the blood? Did your mother see the blood on 
the pillow? 
HR: No. It was miniscule. It was just like a couple of spots on the 
pillow and a couple of spots on the sheets about waist level. 
BH: You didn't notice any marks on you? 
HR: No. They were just almost microscopic spots, but they were 
bright red. 





BH: Do you sleep on your stomach or your side or back or 
what? 
HR: Usually, I start on my side and do about three revolutions, 

and then end up on my back. 
BH: Yeah. What about the pain in the stomach that you had? 
HR: That just seems to be muscles that are tight. I don't know, 

that seemed to be up here [indicates area a little above the 
navel] and I've had that, I thought, since I moved to New 
York, but it seems to have started back then. I've never had 
stomach problems. I used to have, when I was being divorced, 
incredible tension in the back of my neck and 
shoulders, but this seems different. That felt like it was 
muscular and that would relax. A chiropractor could relax 
that. And Valium would relax that. But this doesn't seem to 
relax that well. 

BH: So you still seem to have the pain? 
HR: Not as much, no. But it comes with a feeling of apprehension. 
I just got it in my stomach again. 
BH: The stomach thing - does that feel digestive, internal, muscular, or what? 
HR: It feels muscular. 
BH: When you remember being touched 
HR: Oh! I just got tired. 


Howard looked so devastated at that moment that Dr. Clamar 
suggested he lie down and rest for a while. She asked if he wanted 
a cup of tea, and he gratefully accepted. When he lay down, I 
shifted to Aphrodite's chair close to the couch. Howard turned and 
looked at me, his expression an unforgettable mixture of shattered 
disbelief and helplessness. He could not for the moment find any 
more words. Instead, he reached out and took hold of my hand 
and held it tightly in his, all the while looking at me with wide, 
pleading eyes. I will never forget his expression. It was as if he 
simultaneously needed to touch another human, to feel the solid 
ground, and to receive some kind of explanation for whatever it 
was that had happened to him. I have never felt so inadequate. 

Moments passed in silence. Finally, I told him that it was not 
important now to treat his experience as anything specific - a 
dream, a recollection, or a real event. "It doesn't matter now what 
it was." I knew this was not an explanation but an attempt to make 
something frightening disappear, at least temporarily. 



 

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Clamar returned with the tea and 
Howard began to pour spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his 
cup. When she pointed out that he was using an extraordinary 
amount of sugar, he was surprised; he had not been aware of what 
he had done. The conversation resumed and inevitably more 
questions were asked. I sought details about the figures. 

BH: 
Did they have arms, legs? 

H R: 
Yeah. Long fingers and skinny arms. 

BH: 
Do you remember being close to them? 

HR: Yeah. They were touching me. Or something was touching 
me. It was so physical. I could feel so many physical things 
happening. 
BH: When they were touching you, where were they touching 
you? Were you standing up, sitting down? 

HR: 
It felt like I was floating. It felt like they were touching me 
when I was standing up outsi9 - e,  in the grass, and moving 
or floating me. I don't remember my legs walking. I 
don't remember my limbs moving. I don't remember articulation. 
Like I was floating into this black cloud. Occasionally, 
there was a blinding light,    a bright light, and I could 
feel them touching me,  all over. 

I asked about the figures and Howard made an interesting 
psychological observation. 

HR: 
It really felt like they had no will,   . I somehow 
felt,    stronger than they were. Somehow. Like,    
there was fear there from them. Somehow, they were fearful. 
There was something there,  

BH: 
And yet you weren't really able to move. 

HR: No,    essentially. But I didn't seem to want to. I don't 
remember wanting to get away. 
BH: And there was a point when you said you felt very good. 
HR: Yeah. Yeah. Very calm and relaxed. 
BH: Do you remember when that was? 
HR: That seemed to be towards the end. That seemed to be before I went back into the house. But there was no physical 
shape. I can't really remember any physical enclosure that I 
was going into because the foliage is really tight. There is 
not a large expanse there. The biggest expanse of open 





space for any kind of space to go into would be no more 

than thirty feet in diameter. 
BH: We'll have to go out there and take a look. 
HR: No. There's nothing there. 
BH: Well, I'd just like to take a look. 
HR: No, I don't think there's anything there. 
BH: There wouldn't be anything there still, but I'd like to go out 

and take a look at the space and get a sense of it. 
HR: I don't think there's anything,    {nervous laugh). 
BH: It fleshes it out for me a little bit just to see the area. 
HR: Well, maybe in the spring when it gets a little warmer, or 

something. There really is nothing. 

A half - hour later, during lunch, Howard suddenly said that 
he had no idea why he was so opposed to my visiting the site of his 
encounter. He said that he, himself, thought it was odd to so 
strongly oppose it, and he could provide no reason for his behavior. 


The impact of Howard's revelations were almost as unnerving 
for me as they were shattering for him. I sensed not only what 
he had gone through, but what he was about to experience. I 
phoned him the day after to ask how he was. 

I'm feeling O.K. right now, but I had a terrible night. I really 
didn't sleep very much." 

I suggested he call Dr. Clamar if things got to be really bad, 
because she could ease his anxiety through hypnotic therapy. He 
said he would call her but only if it seemed absolutely necessary. 
At any rate, we did not talk about the content of his experience his 
immediate peace of mind was the uppermost priority. I called 
him each day for the next several days, but it took a week or so 
before things began to return to normal. He told me later that he 
had suffered from a powerful sense of having done something forbidden, 
of having betrayed an important injunction not to remember 
and not to tell what happened to him. I thought immediately of 
Steven Kilburn's I'm not supposed to remember." When Dr. Ciamar 
had asked him why he said he was not to remember, Steven 
had answered, "I just know I'm not. It's really serious. I might die. 
I mean - I know I won't, if I remember, but I'm really, really 
afraid to see." Howard's repeated refusals to allow me to visit the 



 

site of his encounter seemed a product of this same kind of deeply 
implanted threat. 

One aspect of these abduction accounts must be constantly 
kept in mind, and that is the dramatic similarity of the basic 
sequence of events. By comparing these two typical cases, one can 
construct a step - by - step scenario that suggests on the part of the 
UFO occupants a thoroughly preconceived modus operandi. The 
very first element is the establishment of some sort of contact or 
control. Under hypnosis, Steven described the drive in Maryland 
and mentioned that he was tired. Dr. Clamar suggested he stop 
and rest. "No, I don't want to do that. Don't stop me. Something 
will happen if I stop." The suggestion is unmistakable that Steven's 
mind is somehow being prepared for what is about to happen. 
Howard, at the beginning of his hypnotic recall, explains how he 
feels: "Tense. Tensely tired and apprehensive." Aphrodite asks 
what's making him feel apprehensive and he answers, "It doesn't 
feel safe." It is possible, of course, that both of these men were 
simply afraid to proceed with a full recollection of their encounters, 
but the evidence of other cases, as we shall see, suggests the 
more literal interpretation. 

The next step is an overt seizure of control over the victim. A 
lighted object flies over Steven's car, and then, seconds, later, his 
car is somehow pulled off the road. Howard, sitting quietly indoors, 
sees a strange light fill the room and says, "It's done something 
to me." Near total control having been established, each 
man next does exactly what he is supposed to do: Steven climbs 
out of his car and stands near the front fender; Howard gets up, 
puts on his sweater, and goes out to the back of the house. Each 
man still has a rational, self - protective impulse that he is unable to 
act upon: Steven thinks he should go to a nearby house and try to 
get help; and Howard takes a loaded gun with him when he goes 
outside. Neither action is realized. Apparently under external 
control, Steven does not move away from his car, and Howard 
drops his weapon. 

If these events in the scenario can be seen as the initial "setting 
up" of the subject, the next step is his literal immobilization 
and capture. In almost every abduction case I know about, this is 
the most frightening part of the entire experience. "I feel like I 
can't move,   . There are some people there and they're looking 
at me,   . They're trying to move me." Howard's description of 
paralysis is vivid. "It felt like I was floating,    I don't remember 





my legs walking. I don't remember my limbs moving. I don't 
remember articulation." Steven said, "They're standing there just 
looking at me,   . I can't do anything,   . My hands are still, I 
can't move! I can't take one little step! They know it, too." This 
terrifying and absolute loss of body control usually occurs seconds 
before the captors come into view, thus combining two kinds of 
trauma into one devastating experience. The next, and obvious 
event, is the transporting of the captive into the UFO. and this 
seems to be accomplished by a variety of means. Steven's "shoulder 
clamp," so far as I know, is unique in the literature, though 
Howard's being floated bodily inside is common. One interesting 
similarity, however, is the way they describe their small captors. 
I'm stronger than they are," said Howard. "They're frightened. I 
frightened them. I can feel it." "I don't get the feeling he's real 
strong," recalled Steven. "He's not very comfortable here,    he 
doesn't want to stick around. He's not telling me, but it's obvious. 
He wants to leave, I think, more than I do." 

The technological implications of these accounts are as disturbing 
to me as they must be to the reader. Telepathic communication? 
Mind control? Paralyzing people without affecting their 
heartbeats or breathing mechanisms? All of it sounds unimaginable, 
yet we are presented with these particular details over and 
over again. Logic prohibits us from discounting specific elements 
simply because we find "C" harder to accept than "L." Unfortunately, 
we must deal with these accounts whole, and suspend for 
the moment the luxury of particularized disbelief. 

If this phenomenon represents some kind of high - level examination 
of humankind by very advanced extraterrestrials - a theory 
not easily discounted - one may have to accept the reality of 
technological feats far in advance of ours. Since our space program 
has become a reality, one can imagine a scientist saying of 
the UFO phenomenon something like this: "They may have the 
technology to get here from there, wherever 'there' is, but I will 
never believe they could physically float people or communicate 
telepathically. Those ideas are just too wild to consider." One can 
also imagine a scientist as brilliant in his day as Leonardo da Vinci 
saying something like this: "I can almost accept the idea that they 
can make my exact likeness turn up on a piece of paper after treating 
it with chemicals in a darkened room. But I will never believe 
that that little box over there can receive sounds and likenesses 
sent through the air invisibly from thousands of miles away." All




 

en Hynek likes to point out the smugness with which a twentieth century 
scientist looks upon a thirteenth - century practitioner of 
science and medicine. "And yet," he adds, "there will be, if we're 
lucky, twenty - fifth - century scientists who may regard us as equally 
quaint." We must not forget that man has travelled literally from 
the horse and buggy to the surface of the moon in fewer than seventy - 
five years. Any extraterrestrial civilization, say, twenty thousand 
years ahead of us scientifically, just may have come up with 
technological feats more staggering to us than color television 
would have been to Leonardo da Vinci. 

Steven Kilburn and Howard Rich both described a curious 
plateau in a sequence of events which make up the abduction 
experience. We have seen the establishment of external control as 
a three - step acceleration: a gradual sense of dread, of something 
"about to happen," followed by a definite response to some kind 
of [telepathic?) order: get out of the car, go outside behind the 
house, etc., and finally an absolute muscular paralysis which renders 
them helpless. In the fourth step, they are moved aboard the 
UFO. This is followed by the "examination" - if that is what it 
is - which takes place almost invariably on a high, flat table inside 
a curved room. What can be described as an odd "emotional plateau" 
occurs at this point. The captive is somehow tranquilized, 
made to feel at ease, sometimes even quite happy and contented. 
The analogy here to anesthesia is inescapable. Even though the 
subject very often experiences intermittent pain, it is rapidly 
eased by some method which evidently does not involve loss of 
consciousness. Howard's words as he relived this "examination" 
are typical. "What are they doing? What is he doing this 
for?,    There are different lights now and they're all around 
the room and they're touching me with the lights. I'm floating,   it feels like I'm floating and,    they don't say anything. I want to talk to them, but they won't say anything,   they won't say anything. It feels very pleasant, it's 
soft and warm,    I feel very good. I feel very good." Steven 
Kilburn, describing the sensation of sitting on the table in the center 
of a big curving room, says, "It has a real calming effect being 
in this room,   . You almost feel as if you could float. It's very 
peaceful." Later, he describes a light near the center of the ceiling 
and above the table. ",    It shines on me. Kind of warm. Feels 
good. It feels good now. My back feels better, too." And still later, 
near the end of the encounter: "I almost feel, lying there, I'm almost high, just a little bit dizzy. But I'm very relaxed." Many of 
us have described similar feelings after experiencing various 
kinds of anesthesia. 

Two days before Howard's original ordeal in Toms River, Dr. 
Clamar met with another UFO witness, an accountant named David 
Oldham, and I was present for what turned out to be a very 
harrowing hypnotic session.1 It is important to examine his encounter 
for the ways in which it bears out the patterns we have 
been considering. On a September evening in 1966, when David 
was sixteen, he and two other boys drove out to a small nightclub 
near Greensboro, North Carolina. It was seven - thirty when they 
arrived, but they were told that the place didn't open until eight. 
They decided to buy a six - pack of beer and drive around killing 
time until things got underway at the club. David was in the back 
seat and the other two boys were in the front when, for some reason, 
the driver turned down a side road and stopped. This unexpected 
and unexplained turn off the highway strongly suggests an 
imposition of control not unlike Howard's being "lured" outside 
and Steven's swerve off the highway to a dead stop. 

A large orange light hovered motionless over the trees. As 
they watched it, it began to swing back and forth like a pendulum. 
There was absolutely no conversation among the three boys. Later, 
David said, "All I can remember is thinking to myself I really 
want to talk to these guys, but I can't talk to them. It's like something's 
got control of my mind or something, but I just can't talk for 
some reason." 

David's next conscious recollection is driving back to the club 
and going inside with his friends. Things were in full swing and a 
clock on the wall indicated ten - thirty. They could not understand 
what had happened to the time - it was at least two hours later 
than it should have been. They stayed only a short while, but nevertheless 
told some friends about having seen a UFO. When David 
went home, he described to his mother the strange orange 
light, and she told him of UFO sightings near the Greensboro Airport 
that she had heard about that evening. 

The problem of the lost two hours continued to bother him, 
however, and led to his decision years later to try hypnosis. David 
had had several appointments before his October 5th session with 
Aphrodite, but this latter one turned out to be the most revealing. 
As he relived that night in North Carolina, and as one relistens to 
the tape, the parallels of his experience with Steven's and Howard's are unmistakable. At the very beginning of the trance, he 
exhibited great fear and very irregular breathing; in fact, throughout 
the session, Dr. Clamar had to calm him again and again. One 
must remember that these three events happened, respectively, to 
a sixteen - year - old boy in 1966, to a twenty - year - old in 1973, and to 
a thirty - eight - year - old in 1979. Variations in their individual reactions - 
particularly in their ability to control fear - may well have 
to do with their ages at the time of their abductions. Regressive 
hypnosis involves a reliving, with all the attendant emotions, of 
experiences which happened at earlier times in one's life. 

David began by remembering the orange light above the 
trees. 

Oh! What is that light? (Long pause) Getting,    getting 
out feeling helpless. Walking,  walking out. 
There's a light.,    Can't,    can't talk! 

One recalls Howard's feelings that the light in his room has 
"done something to him," and then his apparently involuntary 
action: "Getting up,  walk to the back of the house . 
, There's another light." David, with almost unbearably palpable 
fear, next describes something coming towards him: 

WHAT IS IT? WHAT,    WHAT IS IT? (Very agitated 
breathing) What is it? Why,    why,    getting numb,    all 
over,    getting numb,   . Oh! Oh! Oh! Can't move. 
can't move. Oh! Oh! What's going on? Can't move. Oh! 
What,    what do you,    want? Let me relax,    I 
can't,    I can't,    Help! Help! Help! Help! 

Dr. Clamar intervened at this moment to calm him and to 
remind him that he was only watching these events from a safe 
distance and not participating in them. But this moment, as I have 
said, is the one that is most traumatic of all - the coming together 
of total physical paralysis with the approach of the captors. David's 
terror was deeper and more harrowing than I had ever before 
witnessed. It was all one could do to keep calm in its presence. 


He is taken inside the ship and the examination begins. He 
cries out in obvious physical pain and complains that he is unable 





to breathe. He describes something above his head which makes 
him vibrate. Next, he is shifted to another part of the ship and he 
describes the process this way: 

I am not walking. I am moving,  without,  thinking. 
I'm feeling relaxed,    very relaxed. 

Howard had described the same phenomenon this way: "I 
don't remember my legs walking. I don't remember my limbs 
moving. I don't remember articulation." 

When David is returned to his car, his friends are still inside, 
apparently in a state of suspended animation. (This phenomenon, 
as we shall see, has also been reported a number of times.) It 
would seem that David had somehow been "selected" for abduction 
and examination. The car in which the boys were riding was a 
two - door sports car; David had to push the seat forward and clamber 
awkwardly past his rigid companions. The least "convenient" 
of the three was apparently the only one taken.2 

The end of his account is worth quoting at length. 

My hands are tingling,  hands are getting 
cramps,   . Something is,    holding my hand,    and it's 
all right. I guess,  I'11 go back,  to the car,  got to get 
in,   . 

They look,    petrified. (Soft laugh. At this moment, evidently, 
the others regain consciousness and the memory of the 
experience is wiped away. They talk, resuming the conversation 
that had been interrupted two hours before.) 

'There,    there,    that's not the full moon. Let's go back to 
the club and tell the others,    we saw a UFO. We really did. 

'Backing up,    now he's doing aU - turn and we're heading 
back. We're talking about,    about the UFO. We're getting 
there,  near the club,  and we go,  to the front 
door. 

'What,    what time is it?' 'It's,    ten - twenty - seven.' 
Ten,    twenty - ,   seven. 'Why are we late? Never mind. 
Let's,    let's go inside.' 

'We,    saw a UFO. No kidding. We really did.' (Whispering) 
'I know they don't believe us.' 'Let's go. Come on, it's getting 
late.' 'I'll,  see you later,  see you guys later.' 



 

'Mom,  I saw,  I saw a UFO tonight,  I really 
did.' 
'That's very unusual, David. Are you tired?' 

'Yes.' 

'Oh.' 

'Good night. I'm going to bed.' I really,  feel,  very 
weird. For some,    some reason,    I want,    to cry. 

Dr. Clamar, at this point, brought David out of the trance. 
Many other specific details had emerged during the hour, but the 
central issue to focus upon now is the way David's account echoes 
those we have been examining in depth. Immediately after the 
session ended, I asked him if he remembered why he had gotten 
out of the car in the first place. "Something was,  drawing me. 
I don't know why. Like it was luring me. It's all I can remember. It 
was very frightening. I was scared and I was lured and then I felt 
really calm." A nice distillation of three steps in the standard abduction 
scenario. 

There is, of course, a crucial difference between David's case 
and the others. David consciously remembered the UFO sighting 
and the fact that there was a two - hour time lapse. Neither Steven 
Kilburn nor Howard Rich consciously remembered either. In 
their cases. there were almost no clues to indicate any sort of UFO 
encounter. David is one of perhaps five hundred people who can 
be reasonably sure they suffered this kind of abduction experience, 
based on investigations which have been carried out to date. 
When one tries to estimate how many abductees there may be 
with no conscious recollection of a UFO sighting or a time lapse, 
one realizes that Steven and Howard are a visible two out of what 
could be an invisible multitude. 


Headline.
NBC - THE CATALYST. 


In January of 1979, I received a phone call from Harry Lynn, 
a producer for New York City's "Channel 4 News," seeking information 
for a projected series of features on the subject of UFOs. 
Originally, he had contacted Ted Bloecher but, at this point in his 
life, Ted was reluctant to deal with news people, so he referred 
Harry to me. During the twenty - five years he has doggedly pursued 
the UFO enigma, Ted has had some unfortunate experiences 
with the press. Distortions, mistakes of fact, and outright ridicule 
of frightened witnesses have been all too common in the press's 
handling of this difficult subject. Ultimately, however, Harry 
Lynn's seriousness and integrity won him over, and Ted cooperated 
with what turned out to be probably the best TV documentary 
on the UFO phenomenon ever made. 

When Harry first called, I suggested that he accompany me 
on a current Rockland County UFO investigation. It would be 
helpful, I thought, for him to see first - hand how a case unfolded. 
In December, I had appeared on a WRKL radio interview and 
call - in program, and a young man named Denis "Mac" McMahon1 
had phoned to tell of two UFO sightings he had in 1969. 
Though these incidents had happened a decade earlier, they were 
both extremely interesting. One, witnessed by more than a dozen 
people including a few policemen, involved a UFO travelling 
slowly about fifty feet above the railroad tracks in downtown 
Pearl River, New York. The second, I suspected, was an abduction. 
Before I met Harry Lynn, I had already travelled to Pearl 
River, interviewed McMahon, visited the sites of both encounters, 



 

and satisfied myself about the character and truthfulness of the 
witness. 

The sighting which I suspected might have been an abduction 
was described to me this way: shortly after dinner on a Friday 
night, McMahon, according to a long - established habit, drove to 
West Nyack and picked up his friend, Paul Federico. They drove 
to a narrow road overlooking DeForest Lake where they parked 
and began to talk over the events of the past week and plan what 
to do the rest of the evening - where there was a dance that night, 
where they might find some girls, and so on. Federico noticed, on 
the flat top of the black enamel dashboard, a reflected light which 
seemed to be slowly increasing in size and brightness. He pointed 
it out to McMahon. They both jumped out of the car and looked up 
at the underside of an oval UFO hovering about thirty - five feet 
above a nearby telephone pole. The object had a large beam of 
light radiating downwards from its center, and a line of multicolored 
lights around its outer edge. 

McMahon ended his account by saying that his car wouldn't 
start, even though he had recently installed a new battery. He 
waited a few minutes, and when he tried again, the engine instantly 
fired. They drove off towards Clarkstown - the location of 
the nearest police station - to report the incident. As they moved 
along, the UFO seemed still to be above them, but then it pulled 
ahead, changed direction, and shot off to the northeast, disappearing 
in seconds. 

When I located Paul Federico, he told me essentially the same 
story, though he had not seen McMahon or discussed the sighting 
with him for almost three years. He said that, when he first saw 
the reflection on the dashboard, he assumed for an instant that 
there must be a streetlight above the car. When he jumped out, he 
realized there were no streetlights anywhere in the vicinity. The 
object causing the reflection was close, large, silent, and unlike 
anything he had ever seen before. Next, he too recalled the fact 
that the car would not start. 

I had heard McMahon's account several times, and Federico's 
once, before I noticed an odd gap in their narrative: they saw 
the reflected light, got out of the car to see what it was - and the 
very next event they mention is that the car wouldn't start. Nothing 
about how long they stood there watching the UFO, or when 
they decided to get back into the car. Not even a single, "Then I 
said to Federico, 'Let's get the hell out of here.' " Their story had a 




beginning and an end, but no middle. I asked McMahon directly 
how long he stood outside the car. He was not certain. His memory 
was hazy about everything except the very beginning - getting out 
of the car - and the end - the trouble with the starter and the drive 
to the Clarkstown police station. Federico was equally uncertain 
about what happened in between. The time sequence was as follows: 
both men were sure they arrived at DeForest Lake immediately 
after supper, which would have been no later than seventhirty 
P.M. This was their established custom - to park by the lake to 
make plans for the rest of an evening which had to end by eleven 
P.M., when they were expected home. Their stay at the lake would 
not have lasted in any case more than a half - hour or so, but neither 
man could recall doing anything else that night except driving 
straight from the lake to the police station and then going home. It 
was crucial to find out what time they arrived at the police station, 
because if they got there at, say, eight P.M. or thereabouts, there 
could be no strong evidence for a period of lost time and little 
reason to suspect an abduction. 

I filled Harry Lynn in on all these details. We drove together 
to Pearl River so that he could visit the sites and meet Mac McMahon. 
Harry was impressed by his obvious integrity and the puzzling 
incompleteness of his recall. After we left McMahon in 
Pearl River - he was off to his job as chief of security for a school 
district - Harry and I drove to the Clarkstown police station to 
begin a search for the official police record of the incident. None 
of us were sure of the exact date, but "complaints" are filed by the 
names of the complainants, and in short order a ten - year - old UFO 
police report was read to us. The time of the sighting of course was 
the crucial point, and the first item on the sheet confirmed my 
suspicions: 

10:23 P.M. on 4 - 5 - 69. Denis McMahon, seventeen. Approximately 
ten - fifteen this date they observed a UFO while they were on 
Snake Hill Road in West Nyack. They got a reaction of light on 
the hood of their car so they stopped and got out. There were two 
boys with McMahon at the time - Paul Federico, age seventeen, 
and Douglas Sharkey, seventeen. The three observed the following 
when they got out of the car: a round, object about fifty feet 
in diameter. The object had red and white revolving lights going 
around the edge, and a white light in the center. The object hovered 
about one hundred and fifty feet over their heads and made 


 

no sound. After a few minutes the object took off, heading in a 
westerly direction. The boys stated that they saw a similar object 
in Pearl River last Friday around eleven - forty - five P.M. 

Putting together what we knew earlier with the report, this is 
what seems to have happened: at roughly seven to seven - thirty, 
three boys - not two as we had thought2 - drive to Snake Hill Road 
above DeForest Lake, park their car, and begin to plan their evening. 
Soon they see a strange light, jump out of the car, and a time 
lapse ensues. They come to themselves seated back inside the car, 
drive immediately to the police station, arrive at ten - twenty - three, 
and explain that the sighting has occurred a mere fifteen minutes 
earlier, the time it took them to drive from Snake Hill Road to 
Clarkstown. Then they leave and go home, excited and undoubtedly 
confused about why it was suddenly so late. They never did 
find a dance or locate any girls. 

Sitting in the car, seeing the UFO, and then making the fifteen - 
minute drive to the police station, should have taken them, at 
the most, up to eight or eight - thirty; a full two hours is unaccounted 
for, the period of missing time most commonly noticed in 
UFO abduction reports. The next step, obviously, was to suggest 
that McMahon and Federico undergo hypnosis, but, as is often the 
case, I ran into problems. Paul Federico lived and worked quite 
far from New York City and, though he said he would like to 
explore his experience through hypnosis, his time was severely 
limited. Mac McMahon was willing to meet Dr. Clamar and discuss 
his situation with her, but he was ambivalent about undergoing 
hypnosis. 

The factors which influenced their decisions - and those of 
everyone else in such a dilemma - were threefold. First, and most 
complex, were the personal, psychological factors. Commonly 
held false fears about hypnosis abound, and abet the hesitancy 
many people feel about the process itself. Will I reveal something 
embarrassing, something completely different than the UFO business, 
if I really "go under"? Do I really want to submit my will to 
the will of the hypnotist? Can something happen while I'm in a 
trance that will unsettle my hard - won present stability? And, beneath 
everything, the big one - do I really want to find out what 
happened to me that night during the missing two hours? 

The second set of factors are practical. In this particular case, 
the round trip to and from Rockland County plus the session itself 





would take at least four hours. Mac McMahon had a time - consuming 
job, was attending a local college, and had responsibilities 
to his family and to his girlfriend. Federico's problems were similar. 
The third set of factors are hidden, but, I believe, very real. 
There is convincing evidence, as I pointed out earlier, that the 
abductors implant strong post - hypnotic suggestions, as it were, 
that their captives not reveal what transpired. Almost every abductee 
I've seen under hypnosis at some point nervously alludes 
to warnings not to remember, and not to tell anyone. I often wonder 
in the face of these obstacles that so many people have been 
willing to undergo hypnosis. 

In addition to this, people have changed their minds in midstream. 
Howard Rich willingly walked into Dr. Clamar's office 
and joked about there having been probably "nothing but raccoons 
out there" in the Jersey pine barrens. An hour later, and 
thoroughly undone by what had been out there, we knew better. 
When we left the office, I made the mistake of referring to his next 
hypnotic session. He looked at me in disbelief, as if I had asked 
him to go back to the dark alley where he had just eluded a pack of 
muggers. "Maybe someday I'll try hypnosis again," he said, "but I 
can't imagine when I'll ever be ready for that." Further details of 
his experience, therefore, are hostage to the basic and profound 
human battle between curiosity and self - protection - the desire to 
know and the need to forget. Ultimately, Mac McMahon accepted 
a first appointment with Dr. Clamar. She explained the hypnotic 
process to him but he finally decided against even the preliminary 
"dry run" trance experience. For the time being at least the investigation 
seemed to be hanging fire. 

Harry Lynn, busily assembling material for his UFO television 
feature, had been following the McMahan - Federico case 
with great interest. Abduction accounts particularly fascinated 
him and he had hoped for a chance to put a hypnotic regression 
session on film. McMahon's change of mind, therefore, was a distinct 
disappointment. 

My involvement with Rockland County had begun in September, 
1978, when I accepted a teaching position at the Rockland 
Art Center in West Nyack. The painter Stephen Greene had recommended 
me for a job which he had once held, a one - semester 
painting class. Greene and his wife, Sigrid, are good friends of my 
wife's and mine, and we had frequently visited them at their home 
near - of all places - DeForest Lake. As I was to learn later, they 



 

lived only a half mile from the site of the McMahan - Federico 
encounter. (For better or for worse, coincidences abound within 
the UFO phenomenon.) 

One of my students at the Rockland Art Center told me about 
a friend of hers who had had, with her daughter, a strange UFO 
experience. The incident probably happened in August of 1965. 
The mother, whom I shall call Mrs. Bennett, was an astronomy 
buff, and liked to sleep outside occasionally with one of her children 
to observe the summer sky. She and her daughter, whom I 
shall call Renata, were lying on cots side by side, locating various 
stars and constellations, when a light appeared travelling from the 
northeast. It was larger than a star, and it approached swiftly. 
When it was directly overhead, but apparently quite high, it 
stopped. A very bright beam of light shone down and illuminated 
the woman and roughly one - quarter acre of the surrounding terrain. 
Mrs. Bennett, reconstructing the experience later for Harry 
Lynn's camera crew, said, "When this light came down and shone 
on us, I can only tell you the feeling that you get is that you really 
are,    dead." 

When I first interviewed the Bennetts, it was thirteen years 
after the event. Renata is married and lives in New Jersey, so I 
spoke with each woman away from the presence of the other. 
Each made the same interesting point quite strongly. Immediately 
after their encounter they rushed into the house to tell the rest of 
the family what they had seen. Separately, they made drawings of 
the UFO. But at that moment they realized a peculiar fact: there 
were differences in what each had experienced only seconds before. 
Renata surprised her mother by claiming she never saw the 
huge beam of light, and her mother did not recall her daughter's 
sighting of two small objects which seemed to come out of the 
larger object and then fly off in a different direction. When the 
women first entered the house, they found Mr. Bennett and another 
child still awake, so we can assume the encounter did not end 
late at night. Neither woman, however, can recall what time they 
went outside at the beginning of the evening, so we cannot determine 
if their experience may not have lasted longer than they consciously 
remember. 

The circumstances of this case, as I reviewed them for Harry 
Lynn, are quite interesting. The fact that mother and daughter 
recalled two dramatically different aspects of their encounter only 
moments after its end suggests two possibilities: first, that one or 





both is an unusually poor observer, or second, that each was 
recalling different aspects of a longer sequence of events. Equally 
important to bear in mind is the focused quality of the sighting. 
The UFO approached from a long distance away and stopped 
when it was directly over them. They were for a moment apparently 
the center of interest, and the beam of light seemed clearly 
aimed at them. It isn't as if Mrs. Bennett and her daughter accidently 
happened to see something passing by: rather, it is almost as 
if they were the reason for the UFO's trip in the first place. When 
my student first told me about this sighting, I jotted down its location. 
Now, in looking over various Rockland County cases that 
might interest Harry Lynn, I was amazed to find in my notes that 
Mrs. Bennett lived on DeForest Lake, and that her experience took 
place only about a mile from the site of the McMahan - Federico 
abduction! 

I worked closely with Harry Lynn for several weeks and arranged 
for him to meet and interview Mrs. Bennett and a number 
of other UFO witnesses in Rockland County and elsewhere. Most 
were willing to cooperate with NBC with one nearly universal 
reservation. Harry put it this way: "Usually, when I do a story, 
everybody seems eager to be on TV. But not here, not with UFOs. 
No one wants his name used, I had to shoot everyone so that their 
faces are not visible and so on. It's really strange. They want to tell 
their stories, they want the information out, but they are afraid of 
ridicule, afraid to be recognized." Only a few witnesses - Paul 
Federico and Mac McMahon among them - made no special effort 
to have their appearance concealed. If there is a consistent 
false impression abroad in this area, it is that UFO witnesses as a 
group are publicity - seekers. The opposite is more often the case. 

It was a cold afternoon in January when Harry Lynn, his 
three - man camera crew, and I drove to Snake Hill Road above 
DeForest Lake to film a reconstruction of the Mac McMahon - Paul 
Federico encounter. It was also something of a reunion of friends 
since Mac and Paul had not seen each other in three years. 
Through Harry's growing familiarity with the UFO case material 
and his discussions with Ted and me, he was aware of a range of 
circumstances which indicate possible abductions. He knew, of 
course, of the two - hour period of missing time in this particular 
case, but another clue dramatically surfaced that afternoon during 
the filming. On the way up in the car, I had mentioned that sometimes 
dreams contained suggestions and even partial details of 



 

forgotten abduction experiences. I had described the time in almost 
every abduction when the captive feels relaxed and calm, 
even sometimes recalling, as we have seen, waves of warmth and 
happiness. About a half - hour later, as we stood beside Mac 
McMahon's car and looked out over the lake, I happened to ask 
Paul Federico if he remembered ever dreaming about his experience. 
He said that he had, but the dream was peculiar and he felt 
funny repeating it. I assured him that I took it very seriously, and 
prevailed upon him to share it. Federico spoke slowly without a 
trace of uncertainty or hesitation. Obviously, it had been a very 
clear and vivid dream. 

"I could see an object coming down,    landing,    staying 
there for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and seeing a beam of 
light come out, shine on the area, shine on me, and one thing I 
could remember that seemed very strange - I was not scared at all. 
I felt very relaxed, very calm, and very at ease, almost as if I was 
in my mother's arms as a little baby." Paul is a bespectacled, scholarly - 
looking man in his late twenties, and is employed by a large 
airline. His dream as he retold it was oddly touching and ingenuous. 


By the end of that afternoon, the experience at DeForest Lake 
had been revivified for Mac McMahon. Over the past several 
weeks, he had spent hours reviewing the details for Harry and me, 
going over his recollections, and thinking intensely about what 
had happened that night. He saw the television program as it 
finally appeared in three successive segments on the NBC "Six 
O'Clock News," watching himself and Paul Federico standing at 
the site. A few weeks later, I called Mac to ask how he was and to 
inquire about his reaction to the documentary. More or less spontaneously, 
the wall of amnesia had begun to crumble. He told me 
that he and his girlfriend were driving home late one evening, 
when suddenly, in a rush, he said memories began flooding back.3 
He remembered the UFO landing and the beam of light shining 
on him exactly as Federico had "dreamed" it. He recalled being 
inside the ship and being examined by small, frightening beings. 
The television program had dealt extensively with the idea of abductions 
but without presenting any details of the UFO's interior 
or the "examination" process. A drawing of UFO occupants had 
been shown, but McMahon described his captives somewhat differently. 
There was no way anyone could connect his specific recall 
with what had been discussed or portrayed on the screen. The 





emotion with which he described his experience was both familiar 
to me and unmistakably genuine. Many details of his account 
will be familiar by now to the reader. Above all, it must be borne in 
mind that McMahon reported these details to me in March of 
1979 - months before Steven Kilburn, Howard Rich, or David 
Oldham described their "on - board" examinations. I asked Mac 
McMahon if the table he was on had been metal. 

MM: 
No. Formica sort of top, whitish top, rim around the outside, 
very similar to a counter, but it was in the center of 
the floor. It was either the center or my head was up 
against the wall,    and my feet sticking into the middle 
of the floor,  the wall across from my body, across from 
me, would have been roughly six feet from the end of the 
table. And I'm six feet tall, so I'd say the room was twelve 
feet across. 

BH: 
How about height? 

MM: How high was it? (Pause] No general impression of 
height. 
BH: How was the light in the room? 
MM: Light seemed to come from behind me and up above. 
BH: Do you remember seeing a light source? 
MM: No. The room was well lit. There was a light on me from 

behind and it was like a lamp,    it felt like a lamp. The 
light was like a light bulb behind me and up above. 

BH: 
Though you couldn't see it? 

MM: No. Forty - five degrees up from my belt. Light directly 
above my head. 
BH: Though you never did actually see it, you just felt a source 
there. 

MM: 
Yes, there was a source of light there. 

BH: 
How was the room shaped? 

MM: 
First impression is circular, but I doubt it. 

BH: And these figures,    you said there were three of them 
along the wall,  
MM: Against a flat wall. That's why I say it was not circular. 
BH: How far were they from the table? 
MM: They were up against the wall, from my feet, six feet. One 

was right at my right hip, and bent and looked into my 
face. 
BH: Any sense of the eyes? 



 

MM: 
Yeah, Black eyes. Big eyes. Yeah. Very calm. Very, very 
calm. 

BH: 
Any communication? 

MM: 
No. There might have been, but I don't think so. There was 
none to me directly. I felt like I was being regarded as an 
animal. 

BH: 
And you said they were just compassionless, just,    

MM: 
No feelings. The doctor one,    peered into my face. I 
mean, peered, stared intently. And I mean, the eyes 
were,    he seemed to gauge emotion from eye contact. 
And it was much more steady, intent, I mean, very, very 
intense gaze. And it was right into my face, right into my 
eyes. And they were not hypnotic or anything like that, and 
I was able to look back and scour the face. And the drawing 
at the end of that show. That fits. That fits a lot of it 
together. 

BH: 
You said the figures had this grayish skin,    

MM: 
Yeah. Pale. Very pale. 

BH: 
What about the texture of the skin? Did it look like our 
skin? 

MM: Couldn't,    I first thought plastic, but I doubt that. I really 
don't have any faith in that word. It's like trying to 
describe red to a blind man. Hard! Harder skin. The fingertips 
felt more firm than ours. And they were on my shoulder, 
I know that, just below my,    no, I had a T - shirt on, 
and that would be ridiculous for that time of the 
year,    and it would have been on the forearm where 
my tattoo is on my left arm, on the muscle itself, on the rear 
of the arm, the fingertips grabbed me there, I remember 
that. 
BH: And you said you were struggling. Were you really struggling? 
Were you able to,    
MM: It seemed like a dream sequence. That's what it seemed 
like. It seemed like a dream sequence. It didn't quite come 
out all together. It didn't register well, I know that. 
BH: Any sense of clothing on these figures? 
MM: Clothes? Yeah, they were dressed. 
BH: You said that one guy had on a sort of medical outfit? 
MM: That's what it reminded me of. Maybe that's because of the 
way he examined me. I'd say it was hard to describe. It 
would have been a snap high collar, like,    you see on 
the old doctor shows. 





BH: 
Sort of a turtleneck? 

MM: 
Yeah. The other ones wore more of a coverall,    grayish green, 
darker than their skin, but along the same skin lines. 
More form - fitting. And they were built well. They were 
built powerfully. I remember that. 

BH: 
They weren't weak - looking? 

MM: 
No. They weren't weak - looking at all. They looked like 
miniature people, but there were no skinny arms and all 
that crap, they were built as normal as a person would be. 
That's what it seemed to me. They didn't seem extra - thin. 
They seemed normal, only five feet tall. 

BH: But their faces were,    how about the relation of head to 
body? 
MM: The face seemed bigger and the head seemed more round, 
and maybe a little bit larger, but human. 

BH: 
But they definitely had shoulders, and a build? 

MM: Yeah, they had a build. Definitely a build, definitely a 
structure, and I would say skeletally they were similar to 
us. 
BH: Incidentally, did these images come back from time to time 
or did they all come in a rush one time? 

MM: That night they came in a rush. I was almost in tears. That 
was about two weeks ago. I told Theresa. I just started 
remembering a lot of stuff, and I started talking to her, and I 
almost went to tears, I almost went to pieces. I was driving 
the car and talking and everything was just flowing out, and 
I'm almost in tears, and I started to shake. 
When I'm driving the car, I do a lot of things that are 
automatic, like driving home, especially at night. When I'm 
a little tired, I can drive and talk, and I'm in a different 
zone. I shut off everything except for that. 

BH: 
Mac, would you mind if I talked to Theresa about this? 

MM: 
No. 

BH: 
You understand, I'd like to get her recollections of 
this,    

MM: 
Sure. Definitely. Verification. You've got to have it. 

BH: 
Do you remember any physical pain? 

MM: 
No. A sense of numbness. That is definitely remembered. 
Except,  there was no pain,  I felt normal, except I 
don't remember the actual thing that happened. I do know 
something happened. It felt like I was being ripped to 
pieces, and put back together again, and I can tell you that, 



 

though there was no pain accompanying that memory. 

So I'm saying that because of what I think was done to 
me would have caused pain in any other situation. I just had 
a hypodermic injection in the foot 'cause I've got calluses. I 
can't stand that. That drives me completely up the wall. My 
tolerance is low. But I did notice my reaction. I did take note 
of it in a part of my head that I wasn't conscious of until 
later. But when it started coming out, it started coming out in 
a panic, that things were happening, and as soon as I told 
them I was listening to myself, and accepted that, the panic 
was gone. 

BH: 
Did you notice any communication between them, any 
sounds at all? 

MM: 
I hate saying this - it seems as if they moved and talked 
without speaking, and that's one idea I just don't like, but 
they seemed to talk without speaking. Maybe they were 
talking, but I don't think so. I thought of hand signals. Enforced 
silence. They could talk if they wanted to, but they 
didn't choose to. You don't want a chimp to know that you 
can talk, so you don't talk in front of the chimp. 

It wasn't an antihuman attitude, it was more of a 
"We're going to check you out, pup. Get up there on the 
table" sort of a deal. I get the same impression when I take a 
dog to the vet. Maybe that's what's bothering me, 'cause we 
used to own a kennel. That's the sort of impression I got 
from these people. "Hi, pup, get up on the table here. sit 
down, don't wet yourself." 

Mac McMahon's account is rich in observations, both visual 
and psychological. His description of feeling like a dog on a veterinarian's 
table is remarkably similar to Barney Hill's remark that 
he felt exactly like a hunted rabbit he had once seen, motionless 
and terrified. falsely believing it could somehow escape.4 "I felt 
like a worm on a hook," Mac McMahon said to me later. Other 
memories were equally specific. His sense of their behavior is 
exactly like that which Steven Kilburn reported months later: 
"They were as compassionless as possible. Their attitude was 
completely utilitarian. They did exactly what they had to." 

Mac's description of their physical appearance is worth investigation. 
He had seen on the television documentary a drawing 
made from Steven Kilburn's description of his captives. McMahon 
said that though the head in this drawing reminded him very 





much of what he had seen, the bodies were different. "They were 
built well. They were built powerfully,   . They weren't weak looking 
at all.,    There were no skinny arms,   . They didn't 
seem extra - thin." The fact that McMahon accepted only the facial 
image of Kilburn's reconstruction and firmly rejected the skinny, 
attenuated body, is evidence that he was not unduly influenced by 
what he had seen on television. His description presents a variant 
on a standard humanoid type. Figure 5 in the illustration section is 
a sketch of one of Kilburn's abductors; Figure 6 is a drawing made 
by Betty Andreasson of one of her captors in a 1967 incident. 
Though the faces are similar, the bodies conform to the two different 
types. Her drawing had not been published when McMahon 
described virtually the same type. He also reported that the figures 
were four - and - a - half to four - and - three - quarters feet tall, though 
the "doctor" was taller - about five feet. Andreasson also described 
the leader in her encounter as being taller than the fourand - 
a - half feet average of the rest of the crew. There is another 
striking concordance between the two descriptions. The skin of his 
captors, Mac McMahon said, was like "plastic,  Hard! Harder 
skin, the fingertips felt more firm than ours." These fingertips had 
seized him by the arm. so he had a vivid sense of their firmness. 
Steven Kilburn described the "perfect fingers" which touched 
him as he lay on the table as looking "like hard plastic, and it feels 
hard. I don't know how he could possibly feel anything with a 
hard finger like that." Each witness not only made the same visual 
and tactile observations but also reported them in identical language. 


Harry Lynn had been interviewing witnesses until the last 
weeks of January, assembling videotape from NBC's archives, and 
searching for what he hoped would be the central image of his 
documentary - the filming of an abductee undergoing hypnosis. 
One can imagine that if only a small percentage of witnesses are 
willing to try hypnosis in the first place, how few of these would 
agree to do so on camera. The shooting could be arranged so that 
the witness's face would not be seen, Harry explained, but we all 
understood the difficulty of finding a willing subject. 

Steven Kilburn had had, by this time, two hypnotic sessions the 
first, with Dr. Franklin on May 11th, 1978, and the second with 
Dr. Clamar on December 1st. I asked him if he would consider the 
idea of a third session to be recorded by the NBC cameras, and he 
agreed to think it over. Soon thereafter he talked with Harry at his 
Rockefeller Center office, and was introduced to Chuck Scarborough, the newsman who would introduce and narrate the documentary. 
Within the week, after receiving Harry's firm assurances 
of anonymity, he agreed to the proposal. 

On Thursday afternoon, February 1st, Dr. Clamar's apartment 
and office was invaded by camera, sound, and lighting technicians 
who transformed her living room into a mini - studio. For various 
reasons, everyone was a little nervous. Aphrodite, of course, was 
the only person whose identity would be known and she would 
also appear on camera. Shots of Steven would focus on his hands 
which lay folded on his chest; his face would remain in shadow. 
None of the technicians had ever filmed or observed anything 
remotely like what they saw that afternoon: a normal, intelligent 
man in a deep hypnotic trance reliving his capture by the occupants 
of a UFO. 

What emerges from regressive hypnosis is always unpredictable, 
depending as it does on the subject's willingness to re - experience 
possibly traumatic events. Having committed his employer's 
resources rather formidably, Harry Lynn was more than merely 
looking forward to the afternoon's results. I myself am always 
uneasy at the beginning of a hypnotic session, as the reader will 
have gathered by now, so ironically the only person who appeared 
relatively calm was Steven Kilburn. Entering into a trance state 
meant that he was escaping from the pressures of current reality 
and travelling back into time, into those different pressures of a 
night in 1973. 

Dr. Clamar set the scene, leading him slowly back to Maryland 
and the fifty - minute drive home from his girlfriend's house. 
She asks him to look at his watch: it is five minutes to three. He is 
sleepy, but he is afraid to stop and rest. "I don't want to do that. 
Don't stop me." His respiration quickens. "Something will happen 
if I stop." "Okay, then," Dr. Clamar says softly, "you keep right on 
driving." Steven's voice is tense, I'm afraid to stop. I thought it 
would happen if I should stop." She asks him what he is going to 
do. "Get home,    as fast as I can." His voice is suddenly urgent. 
"Something's in back of me!,    It's in the sky in back of me, and 
it's low and I can see it in the rear - view mirror." There is a long 
pause. ",    It's gone. I don't,    I don't see it." Dr. Clamar asks 
him what happened. ",    I'm afraid to,    think about it. I 
don't know. It's just gone. 

",    It was really low, just above the trees,    and I go 
fast. I hit the gas. I go even faster than I was before." After a long 
pause, Dr. Clamar asks Steven what's happening now. I'm trying 



125 

not to think about it. I'm just,    just driving. Going home. The 
thing scared me, though. It kind of felt like,    it's happening. 
It's happening and I knew it would,   . I mean, I almost knew 
what to expect. I don't know why,   . It scared me but I don't 
really think it surprised me." She asks if he has ever seen anything 
like this before. ",    I don't think so. Not that I remember. It was 
quiet, I had the windows up, so maybe it made noise but I didn't 
hear anything. It just came up suddenly, really fast, with no noise, 
and then was gone. It's dark outside so I don't know,    I don't 
know,   . " After another long pause, Dr. Clamar asks again 
what's happening, and Steven says he's almost home. "It's almost 
light out,    I'm kind of worried about whether I'm going to 
wake up my parents. I think it is light out! Yeah, it's pretty early in 
the morning." Again, she asks him to look at his watch, check the 
time, and he answers with the precision one encounters so often in 
hypnotic regression. "I didn't look at my watch. There's a 
clock,    on top of my mother's refrigerator. And it's,    seven 
after five!" The trip is supposed to have taken less than an hour. "I 
don't know what happened to all the time,    so I tiptoed into 
my house and went to bed." Dr. Clamar says that he seems upset, 
and, she asks what's happening. "What am I going to do about the 
time?,    It's,    it's missing." 

The existence of the one - to - two - hour time lapse leads Dr. 
Clamar to her next question. "Would you like to go over that ride 
again and see if something got left out?" Once more, Steven sets 
out from Frederick, Maryland, on U. S. Route 40. He sees the UFO 
approach and pass over. Then his car is suddenly pulled off the 
road. He is deeply frightened. He gets out and stands near the 
front door, watching two "dark things" crouched near the fence. 
I'm afraid to look there. I'm really afraid to look there. I 
don't have any weapons or anything,    They're coming! I go to 
my glove compartment and it's,    ah,    a flashlight. Oh, a 
flashlight!,  Maybe I can use that to hit something. (Agitated] 
And it's standing there, just looking at me! Not those things behind 
the fence,  I can't do anything with the flashlight. My hands 
are still. I can't move! I can't take one little step! They know it, too. 
God, what is it? Jesus! There's,    there's another one coming 
now. There are five of them, and they,    they,    ah,    Jesus! 
Arms are really skinny. The head is really big, and the eyes 
are completely black, and they shine just a little bit from the 
reflection,  there is a nose,  like a tiny, little raised ridge 
and two little holes,    like little pin holes. They're just checking 



 

me out. I can't move, though. I'm on my feet, but I am relaxed 
,   my hands are at my sides and I'm completely 
,   can't move at all. Can't even turn around." 

Steven continues with his description of the figures. until he 
pauses and Dr. Clamar asks him if he is still paralyzed. "Not as 
much. I can move my head. I can't move my arms, though, at all." 
Then she asks: "What happened to your arms that they can't be 
moved?" "There's just no strength in them,    they don't hurt. I 
just don't have any muscles. It's almost like I have no will to do the 
things I want to do. I think I'd be almost afraid to move anyway, 
though." 

Next, Steven describes the clamp on his shoulder. ",    It 
hurts my back. It's twisting me. Jesus! Give me a break. I'll turn. 
(Laughs nervously.) Just ask me to turn, I'll turn,   . Oh! Oh no! 
[Labored breathing) No! It's there! Next to my car. The thing I saw! 
The thing I saw in my windshield,    and it's just sitting 
there,  this thing,  and the light coming from it. I think 
they are spotlights or something. Really bright. I can hardly see it. 
And this thing is extending from it, like a big,  ah,  like 
a,    like a boom. It's a tool or something to turn me around! 
And it's locked on my shoulder,    I still can't move, so I don't 
know,  why they had to do that. My back,  it bends my 
stomach out,  and my shoulder back. Back hurts from it. 
Really hurts. Getting a little angry. They don't have to do that. I'm 
thinking that I wouldn't hurt them - they shouldn't hurt me." 
Shortly thereafter, we decided to bring the session to a close, so 
Dr. Clamar made a new request. "Steven, suppose you get back 
into the car. Can you do that?" "If I forget about them." "All right. 
Let's just erase them from your mind, erase that scene from your 
mind and get back into the car." "Okay." "You back in?" "I'm on 
the road on my way home." "Good. Let yourself arrive at your 
parents' home." (With great relief in the voice) I'm already 
there!" 

Within a few moments, Dr. Clamar brought him out of the 
trance and the filming ended. It was impossible to know, looking 
from face to face, what the NBC technicians were thinking, but 
there was no mystery so far as Harry Lynn was concerned. He 
knew that he had captured many minutes of dramatic footage. 

When the completed documentary was shown twelve days 
later, its high points came during Steven's hour with Dr. Clamar. 
The entire traumatic episode was covered by carefully selected 





excerpts from the hypnotic session. The unsteadiness of Steven's 
voice, the irregularity of his breathing, and the fearful tension in 
his hands were all too obvious on the screen. 

Harry Lynn had filmed another interview with Steven the 
day after his hypnosis. This time, he was alert and fully conscious 
as he expanded upon his recollections. "In a funny kind of way, I 
felt physically much larger than they. I felt like I weighed three 
times as much as these things. But I was far inferior. I just felt that. 
And I don't know why. It was just a feeling they gave me. I got the 
feeling that if they would have wanted to communicate with me, 
they could have easily. But they weren't really that interested. I 
think they were being very analytical. I think this is why I was 
afraid of them. Because I really felt that, if one of them had 
wanted to look inside my body, and they would have had to cut me 
open to do it, and it would have hurt me intensely, they would 
have done it. Not to hurt me, but just to do what they were trying to 
do. And if it had killed me, well,    they weren't trying to be 
mean or vicious. I think they were just out to do their job and that 
was it." Steven continued: "What frightens me, and what really 
frightens me is that because I didn't remember this before I underwent 
hypnosis, and now remember it, this could have happened to 
you. I think this has happened to a lot of people. And I don't mean 
ten or twenty, I mean thousands,    " 

Steven's unsettling observation was followed by a bit of theoretical 
underpinning - astrophysicist Robert Jastrow on the subject 
of life outside our solar system: 

"If I hold my hand up to the sky like that, it conceals a part of 
the universe, and behind that hand there lie no less than a thousand 
trillion stars and planets like the Earth, but within the visible 
universe I think it would be extremely egotistical to think that the 
only intelligent life in that vast universe is right here on Earth. We 
are teeming with life in this world, and in that world of life, man 
and his entire planet are newcomers, are recent arrivals, not at the 
summit of creation, but somewhere near the bottom of the 
heap." 

Steven's words ended the program: 
"If anything happened to me, it could happen to you - let me 
put it that way." 



 -  -  -  -  -  - ..L -  -  -  -  - 





A few days after the final NBC " News" segment on the UFO 
phenomenon, Aphrodite Clamar phoned to tell me about an interesting 
call she had received from a woman we shall refer to as 
Virginia Horton. They had been introduced through a mutual 
friend who had just described the television segment filmed in Dr. 
Clamar's office; it piqued Virginia's curiosity. Though she knew 
very little about UFO's, she had had a strange experience as a 
child which seemed to involve a time lapse, and she was interested 
in pursuing the matter through hypnosis. Dr. Clamar suggested 
she get in touch with me first for a preliminary interview, 
and on February 21 she called. 

Virginia spoke quickly and directly, in a firm, young - sounding 
voice. She told me that her friend had recounted the filmed 
hypnotic session and mentioned the theory we had presented that 
many, many people may have had UFO abduction experiences 
without any conscious recall. "I told her I thought that was really 
unbelievable," she said. "I can't think of a single person 
who,    " and then it had dawned on her. As the words came out, 
something connected in her mind, she said, something that had 
happened to her as a child. And later, she had remembered a 
second incident that also "fit the pattern," in that both incidents 
seemed to involve memory loss. She had been holding the first 
event in the back of her mind all these years - ever since she was 
six years old - thinking, "There's something odd about this and 
when I grow up I'm going to understand it." 





Before giving me any details, she asked me about the UFO 
phenomenon, and about my role as an investigator. Clearly, she 
was concerned about protecting her anonymity. She is a lawyer 
with a major corporation whose management might not understand 
or tolerate her curiosity about such an exotic subject. She 
told her husband about her desire to explore this childhood mystery 
through hypnosis, and he was very supportive, but she insisted 
we not reveal her identity. 

The incident that had remained so vividly in her mind had 
happened in the summer of 1950, a few months before Virginia's 
seventh birthday .. She was living on her grandfather's farm in 
southern Manitoba near Lake Superior. She had been outside 
playing, and had then gone into the barn to gather eggs; there were 
only a few chickens, and this was one farm chore she enjoyed very 
much. Then, she said, "All of a sudden, I was in the yard and I 
didn't remember going from the barn into the yard towards the 
house. I had an itch on my leg, and I reached down to scratch it. I 
pulled up my blue jeans and when I scratched my leg I realized it 
was wet. I was covered with blood, from a cut on the back of my 
calf. It was a large and clean cut,  no dirt or anything. It must 
have been at least a half - inch deep and an inch long. It was bleeding, 
but there was no pain." 

Virginia explained that her reaction was odd because she and 
her family are all notoriously pain - sensitive; this cut didn't hurt 
despite all the blood pouring out. It was doubly strange because 
she had no idea whatsoever how she had cut herself, nor how she 
arrived in the yard. One second, she had been in the barn gathering 
eggs and, the next second, she was standing in the yard with a 
bleeding leg. On top of everything, as she was about to discover, 
there was no rip or tear in her blue jeans, despite the fact that the 
cut was far up her leg, near the place of her calf's maximum thickness. 
Every young girl probably manages sometime to cut the front 
of her leg - barked shins being a badge of childhood, like skinned 
knees - but a half - inch deep slit on the back of one's calf is a little 
harder to achieve. 

"I went in the house," she continued, "and I showed my 
mother. 'Look at this cut I have. I have no idea where it came 
from.' My mother and my grandfather - ! remember my father 
wasn't there - were alarmed, and my mother bandaged it very 
carefully. The funny thing was, even at that age I realized there 



 

was something very weird about the cut, and later I ripped the 
bandage off, thinking 'I want to remember this.' It left a very nice, 
straight scar,  the only scar I have on my body. 

"There were things in the barn that could have cut me, so we 
all went out and looked around, but they couldn't find anything. 
The only natural way I could have gotten cut required that I somehow 
catch myself on the jeans hard enough so that they would be 
pulled up, and then get cut on something different, or else my 
jeans would have been cut, too. Even at age six, I was clever 
enough to figure that out. The only sharp thing we could find was 
a roll of tin plate about six feet off the barn floor. There just didn't 
seem to be any explanation. 

"We went back in and they told me not to worry about it. But, 
as I said, it never once hurt. It was clean. There wasn't any dirt in 
it. It wasn't ragged, and the kinds of things you can cut yourself on 
on a farm are ragged and dirty. And so I ripped the bandage off 
and I said to myself, 'I want to see this wound. There's something 
fascinating, completely fascinating about it.' Normally I didn't like 
to look at blood or anything like that and I always cried and carried 
on when I hurt myself." 

I asked Virginia if she had read much about UFOs, which she 
assured me she hadn't, and then asked her about any prior interest 
in anything that might be related to the phenomenon. 

"I've always wanted to fly in outer space; in fact, even as a 
teenager I wanted to be an astronaut." 

I mentioned Allen Hynek to her and his name seemed vaguely 
familiar, but she really knew almost nothing about the UFO 
case material; her interest, instead, seemed focussed on NASA 
and the American space program, which she knew in detail. This 
entire childhood business had come up only because of the television 
program her friend had described to her. 

"I called Dr. Clamar and told her that I wanted to be hypnotized. 
It was possible that this was somehow a figment of my imagination, 
but I really wanted to try to find out what actually happened. 
I called my mother to ask her what she remembered about 
it, but she didn't remember anything much, and thought the whole 
thing was a little weird. 

"Then she said. 'But there was that time later on when we 

were at the picnic, remember, and you showed up out of the 

woods covered with blood.' I had forgotten all about it till she 





mentioned it. It happened when we were on a family picnic, and 
my father was taking movies of all the kids, and my brother and I 
came rushing out of the woods. I had been separated from my 
brother and I didn't remember where I had been, and I was talking 
when somebody said, 'You have blood on your blouse.' I was 
horrified and I started feeling the tip of my nose, if I had a bloody 
nose or something. There was nothing, no wound, but I had blood 
on my blouse from somewhere, as though I had been splattered. 

"I said the only thing I could remember is that I saw a beautiful 
deer in the woods. It was almost like a mystical deer,  it 
was very strange. It's all on film,    me with blood on my blouse 
and feeling all horrified and kind of yucky. I've always hated that 
film because it looks so awful. But my mother just reminded me 
about it, because she said that was a time when I was missing and 
no one knew where I was. The first time, when I was six, I had 
been out all afternoon playing, so my mother had no idea if there 
was any kind of a missing time situation then. I just went on and 
on about that deer, though, this beautiful deer that I had seen." 

I asked a few questions about the circumstances. Virginia had 
been sixteen at the time, and the picnic took place in Germany, 
near the Rhine valley, about thirty or forty miles from Frankfurt. 
My next question has become a regular one in cases which may 
have a time lapse or other clue which suggest a possible abduction. 
I asked Virginia if she had ever had any dreams which might bear 
on the subject. She had. 

"I remember, when I was about thirteen, dreaming about 
travelling in outer space and going far, far away and meeting 
people that I knew like they were old friends, and I talked to them 
about things and they explained things to me and showed me 
things. I wanted to stay there, but they said no, I had to go back. 
They said I could share what I knew with my friends, but I 
couldn't stay." 

I asked if she remembered how she travelled, if there was 

some kind of vehicle involved, and she answered that she couldn't 

remember a vehicle, though she frequently dreams of flying. Our 
conversation ended after I told her a bit more about the way we go 
about investigating a UFO sighting. I added that, so far as I knew, 
there was nothing in the UFO literature that served as a precedent 
for her accounts. and that it was highly possible that there was, in 
fact, no UFO involvement. I strongly cautioned her against reading anything about UFOs prior to her hypnotic sessions. and we 
made arrangements to get in touch with Dr. Clamar for the first 
appointment. 

I must admit that I was curious about Virginia's strange story, 
even though it seemed basically unrelated to the UFO phenomenon. 
First of all, Virginia herse1f was an interesting and highly 
intelligent woman. apparently successful in all the important 
ways. She held, as I was to find out later, a very responsible position, 
and was considered by her colleagues to be quite brilliant. 
She was happily married and maintained a strong, continuing relationship 
with her parents. 

In recounting her story to me, she was specific in her recall of 
details, and truly puzzled as to what had actually happened. A 
special tone came through in the telling, a tone which we have 
learned to respect when we hear it: people who have had encounters, 
and those who, through hypnosis, have recalled abduction 
experiences, have a particular objectivity which rarely contains 
what one might call "moral coloration." Despite the fact that 
part of this encounter, particularly the beginning, might have been 
quite terrifying, it is neither "The devils seized me," nor "l was 
singled out by God." Instead, as we have seen. the quality of the 
experience is more that of the laboratory, a nearly neutral situation 
in which the captors investigate and seemingly run tests in 
which the captive is immobilized and made to feel, so far as is 
possible under the circumstances, comfortable. A number of psychologists 
who have interviewed witnesses and read the hypnotic 
transcripts have told me that they detected neither paranoia nor 
delusions of grandeur, The witness's frame of mind is better described 
as perplexed, often fearful, yet apparently objective and 
curious as to what happened to them and why. 

The second detail that linked Virginia's story to an aspect of 
the UFO phenomenon was the factor of a time lapse. Both times, 
on the farm as a child and on the picnic in France as a sixteen year - 
old, Virginia herself was aware of time she could not account 
for. She told me later that, when she came out of the woods just 
before she discovered the blood on her blouse, her parents had 
asked her where she had been, and she told them she had been 
with her brother up until the last minute when she had seen the 
deer. Her brother insisted he had been searching for her and calling 
for at least a half hour. The discrepancy was immediately 





swept aside when Virginia's mother spotted the blood on her shirt, 
and their concern shifted to this new problem. 

One of the arguments against mere psychological aberration 
as an adequate explanation for cases like Virginia's is that the witnesses are apparently normal people who have gone through, say, 
thirtyfive years of life, [Virginia's age), with no obvious signs of 
aberrant behavior - no hallucinations, no instances of amnesia, no 
paranoid behavior or whatever - yet one afternoon, at, say, age 
sixteen, something happened for a short time that the witness can· 
not recall. In the incident in the French woods, of course, we have 
as evidence for something strange, real, and nonhallucinatory, 
the film of Virginia discovering the blood on her blouse and the 
testimony of her family that she had been missing, [and in retrospect, from various accounts. the missing time period seems to be 
somewhere from a half - hour to one hour long). The vast majority 
of encounters or abduction accounts are neither hallucinations nor 
hoaxes: indeed, in my investigations, I have never run into either. 
(This is not to deny that such things may have happened from time 
to time; they are simply very rare and usually obvious from the 
start.} 

Inquiries into Virginia's case moved slowly since the investigating team in normal circumstances consisted of a nine to - five 
computer expert, an overworked psychotherapist, and a professional 
painter - Bloecher, Dr. Clamar, and myself. I spent eight 
days as visiting artist at the University of Texas in Austin shortly 
after Virginia had first called me. Ultimately, several weeks 
elapsed between that call and her first hypnotic regression session 
with Dr. Clamar, a not untypical delay. In the meantime, we had 
spoken again by phone, and again I was struck by her obvious 
intelligence. This second conversation was more wide-ranging, involving 
as it did an extended discussion of hypnosis and its reliability 
as a method for uncovering the truth. Virginia grasped the 
issues instantly, choosing from an extensive, even technical vocabulary 
with speed and precision. It was as if her well - stocked 
verbal closets were always in perfect order; in a split second, she 
is able to lay her hand on whatever phrase she needs while the 
rest of us grope about on untidy shelves. 

Her physical appearance is equally striking, and one feels she 
is the sort of woman who is inevitably noticed wherever she may 
be. She came. accompanied by her husband, Mark, for her first 



 

hypnotic session. I had arrived a few minutes before and was 
chatting with Dr. Clamar when the doorbell buzzed, and I answered 
it. Virginia stepped in, a tall, handsome woman wearing a 
tailored suit and carrying, as I recall, a thin attaché case. An 
instant half - memory flashed through my mind, a long forgotten 
image from a Fifties movie of Alexis Smith in a business suit 
hurrying through a revolving door, every inch the attractive, efficient 
career woman . Virginia's gaze, when she fixes it upon you, 
conveys a combination of feminine vulnerability and enormously 
clear - headed analytical skill. She is above average in height, perhaps 
five - feet - eight - inches or so, and has the kind of athletic proportions 
that suggest abundant physical health. One of the touching 
aspects of the subsequent hypnotic regressions was seeing Virginia 
relaxed upon the couch in a deep trance, a solid and fully 
mature businesswoman, speaking slowly with locutions proper to 
the little first - grader she was at that moment revivifying. 

Mark, her husband, was rather quiet. This was Virginia's afternoon, 
and one can only guess what he was thinking about a 
subject so bizarre, which his wife was intent upon exploring. In 
any case, he seemed supportive of her desires in the matter, and, 
since the idea of hypnosis strikes fear into even well - educated 
hearts, perhaps his presence was necessary to steady both of 
them. 

We entered Dr. Clamar's little office and took our usual positions: 
the subject reclining on the leather couch, the doctor about 
three feet away, sitting on her straight - backed wooden chair, and I 
on the floor near the head of the couch with my recorder and 
hand - held microphone at the ready. An extra chair had been 
brought into the room and Mark placed it at the other end of the 
couch. Occasionally, during the hour - long session, he would reach 
over to gently stroke Virginia's feet and ankles in a nice, calming 
gesture of physical support. 

Dr. Clamar first induced a hypnotic trance in Virginia simply 
to let her experience the feeling of such deep relaxation for a few 
minutes before bringing her out of it. This is the "dry run" that 
prepares the subject for the next step, which is to introduce a 
deeper trance state, and then to move into regression. Aphrodite 
takes her time bringing the subject slowly down, down into a very 
deeply relaxed state. Then she sets the scene, describing the time, 
the place, and the circumstances to trigger specific recall. 

The verbatim transcript of a hypnotic session is, in its cold, 




flat neutrality, quite misleading. Virginia was a very apt hypnotic 
subject and her memories developed with great ease, but the way 
in which words, phrases, and even sentences were inflected is 
crucial. Short of writing what would look like stage directions, 
there seems to be no satisfactory way to indicate these subtle shifts 
of emphasis. 

One can detect at least three distinct levels of discourse. The 
simplest is when Virginia relives her long - ago experience in the 
present tense: "I walk up the hill, I say to my mother," and so on. 
In these cases, the language and phrasing is often quite childlike what 
one would expect of a precocious six - year - old - and the 
sense of immediacy can be startlingly” vivid. 

The second level is when Virginia comments on her experiences, 
speaking more or less to Dr. Clamar about what she had just 
re - experienced. "I remember I always liked eggs, even when I 
was littler," etc., and often this kind of past - tense discourse flows 
quite directly out of the other. Usually the vocabulary in this mode 
is that which one would expect of Virginia at her current age. 

A third level is more complex. Dr. Clamar would occasionally 
ask a question which would bring up a subject slightly outside 
what was being actively recalled. At these times. Virginia would 
slip into her six - year - old persona and try to remember, while analyzing 
the evidence with her present adult faculties. So several 
modes underlay the narrative, often sliding one into the other, and 
producing a rich psychological mix. 

Dr. Clamar induces the trance, a process lasting about fifteen 
minutes. Virginia is provided with a safe "cloud" from which she 
can witness and re - experience a childhood event with complete 
freedom. She is taken back to a warm. sunny afternoon on her 
grandfather's farm in Manitoba,    "You are playing outside in 
the yard,   . " When she begins to speak, Virginia's speech is 
slightly slurred because of her very relaxed state. The sentences 
follow each other logically, but slowly, and she speaks in a somewhat 
childish idiom. 

VH: 
I sit on the grass,    the grass is very thick and green. I 
blow the dandelions. I always like them because they 
are so fluffy. I sit under a big oak tree that has a big 
swing in it, and I like to swing, and 1 like to look at ail the 
plants and flowers, and I have my own little garden with 
things growing up although I was disappointed that they 



 

didn't come out as neat as Mama's garden did. It’s sort of 
all mixed up and I can't actually tell exactly which were 
the weeds and which were the flowers,  but I expect 
the weeds to turn into flowers. I didn't pull out anything. 
That's my garden. It's supposed to grow,    and 
I walk around the yard, pick up the dirt - the dirt's moist. 
I look at the pigs. I like to look at the little piglets, 
and I walk up the hill. I look for some interesting stones 
and sometimes I see lizards all around. They're scary, 
but I kind of like them. They're like little rocks, but I 
don’t like to pick them up. I look for interesting rocks 
and I look at the big piles of cow manure,  they're 
really huge,    and I like the barn. We used to have 
more animals. Now I think we just have a few chickens. 
There is one horse or maybe two horses. I go in to get the 
eggs. I remember the feeling of those nice, warm tummies 
and putting my hand under each tummy. They 
don't always have eggs under them,    and so I have 
to feel around,  they have fat tummies. so you sort of 
have to poke around. and sometimes there are two 
eggs. I don't think the eggs were gathered every day. So I 
gather them. I think there are eight or nine of them and 
they were brown. 

I remember I always liked eggs, even when I was 
littler. My grandmother had a porcelain egg for darning 
and I was very attached to it and I got one for my birthday. 
I like it. I always like eggs. They had such a nice 
feeling. 

So I get all the eggs that I can and I go to the house 
and I remember that my leg itched - itched, you know, 
like it itches when you - if you accidentally sprinkled 
water. It's the sensation of having fluid on the surface 
.. . that kind of an itch - and I reached down to 
scratch and it still itches, so I pull up my jeans and - I 
wasn't looking at my leg, just reached my hand down 
and my hand feels all wet, so then I look down and my 
hand is all covered with blood and I see blood on my leg 
and I'm really surprised because I'm afraid of blood and 
being cut and how could I be covered with blood and I 
thought, well, I wonder if it's something from a chicken 
or something. I didn't think it was my blood at first. Then 





I see that I have a cut and the cut's deep; it's bleeding 
and dripping down my leg into my sock,  I have 
very dark blood and I'm kind of alarmed about it. But it's 
not even as though it's my blood. It's somebody else's 
blood; somebody else's cut,    and so I go running into 
the house with the eggs. I'm careful not to drop them, 
and I say, 'Mom, look. I cut myself.' She said, 'What did 
you cut yourself on?' and I said, 'I don't know. I just have 
a cut.' She looked at it. She sees a lot of blood and she 
stops whatever she's doing and she looks at it. She says, 
'Well, you must have felt it',    and I say, 'I don't 
know. All of a sudden there was blood. I don't know 
what it was from.' 

(Virginia uses a slightly different tone of voice when she repeats 
her mother's words.) 

Mother: 
Well. where were you? 

VH: 
I just got the eggs out of the barn. 

Mother: 
Well. didn't you feel it?' 

VH: 
No, I didn't feel it. I don't know what I cut it on. 

VH: And then my mother said something to my grandfather. 
Mother: There's something sharp in the barn? 
VH: Cramps said, 'Not that I know of. Why?' 
Mother: 'Virginia cut herself.' 
VH: And Gramp looked at it and he said, 'What did you cut it 

on?' and I said, 'I don't know. I just,    suddenly it was 
bleeding. I don't know what I cut it on.' 

Gramp: 
'Does it hurt?' 

VH: 
'No, it doesn't hurt.' 

Gramp: 
'It's a deep cut.' 

VH: 
And they wiped it off with a wet cloth and I'm just staring 
at it and I'm wondering why it doesn't hurt and Mom 
put a bandage on it. It takes her awhile. It doesn't stop 
bleeding, though. It's still bleeding, though not as much. 
It's itchy. It feels almost as though,    it itches from the 
blood touching my skin but the wound itself doesn't 
have any feeling at all. Like it isn't even part of me. Like 
I'm looking at somebody else's leg. 

AC: 
Ask your mind to help you recall how you got the cut. 



 

VH: How do I ask it? 
AC: Let yourself go into yourself. 


(Further instructions from Dr. Clamor.} 

VH: 
Well, I'm kind of afraid to watch myself get cut. That 
will bother me. 

(There follows a five - minute period in which VH discusses pain, 
her fear of it, and her fear of remembering this incident. It is 
clear to Dr. Clamor and to me that there is a definite resistance to 
further recall. After a pause, Virginia speaks again.} 

VH: 
I think my leg was cut with a scalpel. It was just really 
sharp and clean. as if somebody made a nice, clean 
quick incision,    and I don't think that it hurt, but I 
think I expected it to hurt. 

{And again. Virginia hesitates to recall more details, and gives 
further examples of her fear of pain. But then she resumes her 
narrative.} 

VH: They took a little cut. They didn't mean to hurt me. 
AC: Where were you when this,   was taking place? 
VH: I was just lying on the couch, a little couch like this. It 

was comfortable, you know, like a bed or almost like a 
medical thing, but it is. it does not have the quality 
of a doctor's office. It's not chromey and white and the 
light's bright. There's plenty of light but I think maybe it 
might be pale gray or a real soft gray. It's pearly. Those 
kinds of colors. There was a luxuriant feeling to it. 
Elegant and simple and rich. I'm trying to think if it had 
some smell. Clean. Really an ozone smell. That was the 

smell. Kind of a clean smell, but nothing very specific. 

AC: 
How were you feeling? 

VH: 
I was really relaxed and almost at home. Comfortable. 
Curious. Like you feel when you're a guest of somebody 
and you're glad to be there. I,  ah,    it seems that 
I was told about the cut, that it wou1dn't hurt and that 
there was a reason for it, but I don’t think the reason was 
one that was too clear to me,  whatever the explanation,
I didn't really understand. 






Who told you about the cut? 
Hmm. I'm trying to think. Who told me about the cut? I 
don't know. I just could say it was direct communication 
with my mind, but I wouldn't necessarily claim it was 
telepathic,  but it seemed the trouble I had understanding 
was not the words so much as just the idea was 
one that 1 didn't understand. 
You don't understand it conceptually? 
Yeah, the conceptual part I didn't understand, but I 
didn't have any trouble in communicating. Whatever I 
was told, the communication process wasn't a difficult 
one, whether it was direct mental communication or 
words or English,    it was just that at that 
age,  the communication was straightforward and I 
didn't even think about how it worked,    and who it 
was. It was sort of like how my grandfather explained 
things to me - just explaining, a friendly person who was 
explaining things; explaining that we need a little, bitty 
piece of you for understanding,  and it was as 
though they had a puzzle that they were working on and 
it was very important to them. And they asked my permission. I guess it was a they,  it was as though 

somebody was doing the explaining and someone else 
was the one who did it (the cutting). I don’t have a strong 
sense of how many somebodies. I don't have a visual 
image. I have a visual image of soft colors, pearl - grays 
with some blue or mauve,  but a kind of a textured 
feel, like leather and velvet, you know those kinds of 
nice, smooth comfortable textures, but I don't 
have,  it could be that somebody was in a different 
room and talking to me and I knew there was somebody 
talking to me hut, urn - it was as though I was in a room 
by myself and yet I knew I wasn't. It's as though they 
said, 'You can't see us because you wouldn't understand 
how we look. It would scare you.' 

No. They didn't say scare. It was as though you 
wouldn't understand, so it was easier to just talk. You 
know, I think it could be that I didn't see anybody at all. 
It could be that it was just all handled by automatic 
equipment, except that they explained to me what the 
equipment would do, you know, and how and why and 
did it in such a way that it was like an extension of some




AC: 

VH: 

 

body that I was communicating with,  not a face, not 
a hand, but there was a gentleness about it. It wasn't 
anything abrupt. Whoever it is, it's someone I'm very 
comfortable with. It's either somebody that I've known, 
except that I think it just reminds me of somebody I've 
known, like my grandfather,  somebody who's older 
and whom I'm very comfortable around, like a very explaining 
type of person. 

It's as though there are more people than one but I 
think I only talked to one. And I'm more curious about 
where I am and more curious about the room and the 
immediate environment I'm in than where they come 
from and what they mean or what they're about. The 
room doesn't have an alien feeling; it's just different 
than I've seen - fancy, modern - and it seems pretty big. 
It seems like the room is either spherical - no, the room 
is like a round room or half of a round room. I don't see 
behind me, but what I'm looking at is round, I think, and 
it's like the walls are round, too. Round. It has a quality 
like the TWA terminal at JFK - round, curved walls. 

There are lots of things to catch my eyes: things that 
shine, they're sparkly, like crystals or like instrumentation 
or,    but they're so pretty that they don't distinguish 
in my eyes between whether they are things, or 
art. Just pretty. Like pearls and like crystals and like 
metal,    mostly silver. It doesn't seem to be goldcolored. 
It seems to be silver - colored. And it's big - it 
seems it's big - it seems, it seems - urn - bigger than your 
(Dr. Clamar's) living room, it seems maybe bigger than 
my living room. but not quite as big as my whole apartment. 
It's a big space. But, of course, I was littler. And 
the light doesn't come from any one place and it isn't all 
the same color. It changed a little bit and there are colors 
in different places, but only soft. 
How did you get from the chicken coop to here? 
Hmm,    you know, it could be that I went to the 
chicken coop afterwards,  the chicken coop,  I 
don't know. I don't know (puzzled hesitation]. Let me 
see. How did I get there? I'm so overwhelmed by being 
in the place that I am that I don't even remember getting 
there. How did I get there? Gently. It wasn't rough. 




AC: It wasn't rough? 

VH: No, it was gentle. It was like I was playing and I was just 
doing something and then all of a sudden I'm somewhere 
else. Nothing rough about it. Not rough at all. I 
think, however, it is just that I get there or something, but 
I don't understand. Just, "here I am." Then I think it's all 
right. Quiet, too. There's not much sound,  maybe a 
soft, soft, soft subdued hum or noise like a humidifier 
makes, but there's not a lot of noise. It's nothing like 
flashy or bright or noisy, or abrupt, like maybe I'm just in 
the yard and then I'm somewhere else gently, nothing 
noisy or flashy or abrupt about it. It's almost like it's a 
dream. (Long pause.) In fact, maybe I thought it was a 
dream except, except I'd never had a dream like that! 
{Emphatic.) Also there's a strong sense of person to the 
person I'm talking to. A very grandfatherly quality about 
him, a quality that reminds me of my grandfather, who is 
very loving and very patient,  likes to explain and 
share things with me and he's fun. The place is 
like a dream, except the person's not like a dream. The 
communication is very real. 
What else did he tell me? I,  think he explained 
things. Well, you know, it's almost as though it was 
somebody I knew. You know. like 'How are you? How 
are things here and how have you been?' It isn't necessarily 
somebody I specifically knew but it does have a 
quality to it. Like somebody I know. 'Hello, how are you? 
How are things?' 'They're fine. They're fine. This is such 
a nice place.' 
And - umm - (long pause), I guess we did talk about 
the stars. It's like he says, 'You know, you look up at the 
sky. You see all those stars.' 'Yes, I have done that.' 'And 
each one of those stars is a place like the sun that has its 
own places, like your place. And all of those stars have 
their places. There are a lot of things there, a lot of different 
homes, and we're from a long way away, from 
one of those places,' and it seems that he spent some 
time explaining to me that there are different kinds of 
places, you know, some that are like where I live and 
some that are very different and some that are very nice 
and some that aren't and some that are modern and 




some that aren't. And so it's a very big, exciting place to 
explore. You would like to go and see a lot of different 
places, what they're like. Some of those people 
know each other and some of them don't, and he knows 
quite a lot of them. It's an sort of matter of fact.  
Mean, it's just Like somebody would describe visiting 
Europe to you, you know, that there are different 
countries and they do different things in different countries, 
and you can travel between them like, pretty much 
like explaining to a child about foreign places. And also 
that the people that live there are all very different and 
some of them know things and can do things that are a 
lot different, mostly friendly, but not all. Kind of a long 
description of the variousness of life, places that people 
live and the adventures of visiting different places and 
learning more about it. And I guess he explains why I 
am there (in the craft) . ·that I am part of that adventure 
of discovering a new place and that it (Earth} seems 
like a nice place, and I say, 'Yes, it is. It is a nice place.' 
And I guess I ask him what his place is like, too, and, 
umm, what did he say? He says his place is different, 
that it would look strange to me, but not super - strange, 
and, umm. he was very happy. He was very happy about 
meeting about visiting, about talking to me and me. It's 
like the whole thing is a big happiness for him, as though 
he,    you know, I have that sense that,    it's a big 
dea1. happy thing for them just to be talking to me and 
he's trying to share their excitement with me. 

And I'm not so excited as I am just kind of happy 
about it and - let's see - he's sort of,    he doesn't tell 
me too much about himself; it's like - umm - he has 
hands, says he has hands. it's like his fingers are longer. 
Well, I mean, maybe not longer, but it's like they're skinnier. He calls to mind,    I don't know whether he 
calls to mind or his description calls to mind,  maybe 
like tree frogs have, you know,    and I don't remember if he says how many (fingers}. However, how ever 
many there are it isn't like they're a lot different 
,   maybe four, maybe there's six. It isn't a lot different. 
And, umm, I think he says that they're a little 
grayer than we are in color and he says that it would 
take me quite a while to get used to how he looks. 





I don't feel any overwhelming compulsive curiosity 
specifically about it. It's as if he's right there, just in the 
process of communicating. Umm, when I was a little kid, 
I always had a very easy rapport with older people, my 
grandparents and other people,    he's just like another 
one of them. You know, like discovering another 
old friend. I have always had older people, friends, who 
explain things to me, and I accept it as just that kind of a 
thing. 

And what else?,  They have eyes. The eyes are 
different than ours. I don't remember exactly how. They 
might not have eyelids . . and they might not have 
two eyes; they might have three or they might have two. 
I'm not sure about that, but they have eyes, and I think 
they stand; I think they have a body that stands up like 
ours does. Tall. Slim - type body. They can walk 
around,  and the eyes are at the top. Let's see. Sort 
of going through the parts of him that are like the parts of 
us. Let's see if he says anything that's different. 
Ah,    the skin's different. Bones are different. I guess 
he says his insides are arranged different, and I think he 
says something about the brain is a percentage of their 
total body,  it's a bigger part of them. Hmm. Now 
what else did he say is different? I think hair. I don't 
remember whether they don't have any hair or whether 
the hair is different or whatever their surface is, it's 
somewhat different. Smoother, I think. Maybe like soft, 
pearly leather. It seems like their bones are different. 

I don't think he said whether he was a man or a 
woman, but it seems like whatever it is it reminds me of 
a masculine thing, grandfatherly. Grandfatherly. He's 
old. Yes, he's definitely old and he doesn't tell me how 
old, old is. He's just old. And that reminds me of my 
grandfather, too, who used to lie about his age, and he 
would say he was one hundred and three, which he 
wasn't, but he would just say it because he was telling 
me that he was old, and this person told me that he was 
very old. too, but he wouldn't tell me how old. 

I think I just talked to one person. It seems like a 
long time. It seems like a whole afternoon, you know, a 
long, relaxed afternoon. 

AC: (Inaudible question about the incision.) 



144 
 

VH: 
It's almost as though the couch has a thing on it which 
does that by itself, and I didn't see the person who does 
it. It's as though it's done remotely. You know, have you 
seen those things where you put your hands in when 
they handle radioactive material? Your hands go in and 
you handle instruments and then, at a remote location, 
something happens. It's like that. I don't think they have 
any direct contact with me, physically. It's as though 
wherever I am lying they're on that side of me behind 
the wall, or perhaps that's just where the sound comes 
from. It's as though I am talking to them over there in the 
next room. I guess it's because they tell me that, you 
know, I breathe my kind of air. I guess they breathe different air. I'm not sure about that, but it's as though, well, 
whatever it is it's for my comfort. All this, it's just like 
you find it so natural. Matter of fact. 

(Break is continuity where the tape was changed. VH discusses 
wanting to see them again, but bow can they find her?) 

VH: 
It's an easy thing. It's almost as though he can identify 
me by,    it's just like I stick out who I am, you know, 
like he can tell where I am. 

AC: How can he tell who you are? 
VH: Umm. like he can recognize a voice. It's like, he says, I 
can recognize your voice. It's sort of like recognizing 
brain waves, or something,  it's like everybody has 
their own pattern, own trademark, so that he doesn't 
have any problem about that. When I think of it, I 
didn't,    (explain?). It seems that I just accepted that. 
He said, 'It's 1ike recognizing your voice.' 

AC: Does the wound have any function in their ability to 
'recognize you'? 
VH: I'm thinking (pause),    umm. They didn't talk about 
blood. They just said, 'Take a little, teeny piece of you 
home.' It's as though, the way they described it to me, it's 
like a combination of a souvenir,    . Yeah, I guess it 
does,  a combination of a souvenir and a way of get.. 
ting to know me better. And they asked my permission 
and they said it's very important and it won't hurt. And I 
say, 'Fine.' So I don't watch. It's as though there's kind of 




chromed stuff over there, you know. And so I don't 
watch. I don't think - I don't think it feels anything more 
than when you rub your fingernail on your skin 
or. (pause) maybe, I don't know whether maybe it 
hurt, and they told me it wouldn't hurt. Since I decided 
to do this (undergo hypnosis) and I've been thinking 
about it - it's like I could feel feeling in my leg. It's as 
though maybe there was pain there, but I was told it 
wouldn't (hurt) and then I didn't feel it. It was like the 
pain was inside and the pain wanted to come out - but 
I don't think it hurt at the time. and I think I asked 
'Aren't you going to put a Band - Aid on it?' and they said, 
'No, we'll just stop it from bleeding.' So whatever they 
do, they do it, you know, like this, and then it just closes 
itself and stops bleeding, like that's all part of what they 
touch me with, you know, just like (pop) . but there's 
no Band - Aid. O.K.. so that's fine. Yeah, I guess they 
leave it attached to me. I mean next to me as though it's 
just holding it against me, and uh - yeah, it's against my 
leg. Soft, like that, and (pause) he has to explain to me 
that in a while that I can't remember 
him,    yeah,    and 'You won't be able to remember 
unless you see me again.' I have a hard time understanding 
why not. He says, you know. people will be 
upset, and I say, 'Why?' He says because it's different 
than what they do. It's one of those things,  kids you 
know - why? Why? Why?' This is just nice, you 
know. My mother won't be upset. I'm certain! They say, 
'Well, that may be, but other people will be and you 
don't want them to treat you like you're weird just because 
you visited me.' 

'No. Why would they do that?' 
'Because people just do.' 
'Now, I don't think so, I just don't think so.' 
'Yes, they do.' 
It's sort of like I don't believe him, but he tells me 


that that is the way it is,    because I don't have a 
sense of weirdness about it, so I can't imagine why anybody 
else would. 

We laugh about some things. I can't remember 
what. Some things are funny. Some kind of chuckle 



AC: 

VI - I: 

AC: 

VH: 

 

things like - oh, it's funny. It seems like we laugh about 
chickens. I don't know. It's just that we do some laughing 
about how funny things were. I don't really know 
what. 

Yeah, he just asked me if I would like to visit him at 
his home, and I said, 'Yes, I would.' And so that's another 
maybe. I ask him if it's nice, and he says, 'Yes, it is.' 
You feel a lot like the way it feels right now, and. urn, he 
seems to enjoy how much I enjoy all the sparkly things. 
It doesn't mean that they have a lot of sparkly things at 

home. 

(Inaudible question about the purpose of his visit.) 
We had,    it's the adventure of it. You know, it's the 
fun of it and the adventure of it. He explains about all 
those wonderful, interesting places to visit. How different 
life is in different places and,  the different 
kinds of animals and plants and people and different 
ways of doing things, and that it's so interesting to see 
and learn about them. So he just explains it like an adventure. 


It's funny. When I went to graduate school. [ remember 
that people would ask me what I wanted to do. 
I said I wanted to be an adventuress. and I was very 
taken with the idea of adventure, and travelling around 
and seeing neat things and trying neat things, meeting 
interesting people. It sounded like a lot of fun, and he 
said it was a lot of fun, and that was why he had come to 
see me and that's why he would try to come back another 
time to see me again if he could. 

Yes, he painted a wonderful picture of all there is to 
see. Beautiful things, unbelievable things,    and no 
end to them. No matter how long you looked or how far 
you went. you'd never get to the end of them. 
Did he tell you how you could get to visit these 
places? 
Yes, he said he could take me there, but that it would 
take a while and that we didn't have time now. Maybe 
some other time he would. And, ah, you know, like, 
'Your Mom would be upset if we went away for a while, 
you know.' A while didn't seem to be - didn't seem to be 
years, you know, it could have been months. but it would 
take a while, which seemed natural, of course, and, uh, 




yeah, he 
couldn't do that without asking my mother's 

permission. And I said I was sure she wouldn't care. I 

said I'd ask her. 'No, we couldn't do that just now. He
didn't say he would and he didn't say he wouldn't, but it 
was just something we couldn't do right then, so maybe 
we would do it another time. 

AC: 
Has he done it for others? Has he taken others to his 
place? 

VH: I don't think I asked him. I don't think - you know the 
light might have been very bright. It seems like my eyes 
hurt me. (Virginia was rubbing her eyes.] Maybe the 
light was very bright. Pretty. but bright. (Returns to the 
question.} Did he take others? Well when we talked 
about it, he didn't talk about it as though it was a new 
idea or something that was an odd question. It was like, 
you know, you'd ask your grandfather if he would take 
you to town to go to a movie, and it wasn't that, it was a 
novel idea or anything. It was as if he felt like it. he 
could or would, and I don't think I asked about anybody 
else. 
It seemed like - it seemed like it was just a special 
relationship with me, but you see that was true of the 
way I related to older people, so I don't know whether 
that was - I mean, I was especially close to my grandparents 
and especially close to aunts and uncles and it was 
always a very special relationship to me. They were 
closer to me - it was just that kind of a thing. We were 
good buddies and that just seemed very natural to me, 
but. he talked about the adventure of it as though 
he wasn't the only person who did it. People did it because 
it was a neat thing to learn, and a fun thing to look 
around, and it didn’t seem it was unusual for more than 
one person to do it. The thing is. you know, it wasn't like 
I was talking to strangers - that's what made it so interesting. 
You would have thought, you know, when I first 
got there, I mean it wasn't an uncomfortable place, but 
you would have thought that, when I started to talk to 
somebody. it would have seemed like - it's almost like 
there wasn't much even in the way of introductions. 

AC: 
As if you've known each other from somewhere or other 
from before? 

V: 
Either that we had known each other. or about each other, or were just the kind of people who found it easy to 
get to know one another. It just wasn't - it wasn't like 
when you meet a stranger. 

We had reached a logical stopping place in what had turned 
out to be a remarkable session. I signalled Dr. Clamar and she 
nodded agreement. After a minute or so of instruction about how 
relaxed she would feel, and how easy about what she had learned, 
Virginia came out of the trance. She yawned, stretched, and 
smiled and the tension broke; we all realized at that moment how 
deep our concentration had been, and how intense our psychological 
involvement in her unfolding adventure. 

It was well into the dinner hour, so we departed quickly. I 
hardly knew what to say after the revelations of the past hour, but 
I mumbled good - bye and thanked them for their time; then I 
headed back to my place in Chelsea to mull over what we had 
learned. So many things coincided with other abduction cases; in 
fact, all during the hypnotic session, little bells of recall kept 
sounding in my mind. as detail after familiar detail surfaced. 
When I had time finally to re - examine some of the case material, I 
found the specific parallels I was searching for in other accounts, 
most of which are either completely unknown to the public, or at 
least extremely obscure. 

The general description of the circular walls and the even, 
source less lighting of the examining room naturally fit the pattern. 
But there was an interesting detail about the color of the light. 
Virginia had said that it "might be pale gray, or a real soft 
gray,  pearly,  those kinds of colors." "Gray" or "pearly" 
seemed odd words to use to describe bright light, but in the 1976 
Casey County, Kentucky, abduction of three women, Ms. Elaine 
Thomas, under hypnosis, also described the examining room as 
being lit by a gray light.1 Barney Hill, under hypnosis in 1964, 
described the room in which he underwent some kind of physical 
examination as " being filled with this bluish light,  which 
didn't cast any shadows." David Stephens, abducted with a companion in Maine in 1975, thought the curving walls of the examining 
room were gray and the floors shiny. So we have a narrow 
band of colors used to describe the atmosphere - pale. soft gray, 
pearly. bluish - denoting a cool. specific range far away from either 
white, which one might expect, or a normal incandescent 
range. 





Virginia described this gray light as being very bright; in fact, 
she frequently rubbed her eyes during the hypnotic period. In her 
second session, she even complained that the subdued lighting in 
Dr. Clamar's office was too bright, and ultimately we had to switch 
off the lamps and continue almost in the dark. Carl Higdon,4 who 
was abducted in Wyoming in 1974, complained later about the 
lights in the hospital room where he was taken after his ordeal. 
They were too bright, he said. His eyes were extremely bloodshot 
and teared constantly. Mona Stafford, another of the women in 
the Casey County case, suffered a severe burning and tearing of 
the eyes. Her two companions also had trouble with their eyes, 
though Mrs. Stafford's problem was so severe that she consulted a 
doctor. Betty Hill,6 describing her position on an examining table 
as she recalled it through hypnosis, said,", the light is very 
very bright, so my eyes aren't always open. I'm a little scared, too. 
I'm not particularly interested in looking at them [the humanoids 
who are performing the examination)." Young Gerry Armstrong 
was abducted at the age of twelve from the grounds of the school 
he was attending in England. When he was found seven hours 
later, he remembers, there was something wrong with his eyes 
although he is not sure what the problem was; he feels he might 
have been told that his eyes were dilated? This abduction of a 
twelve - year - old in 1953 creates an interesting additional parallel - 
the very early taking of a child - but through many of these 
encounters - the Wyoming, Kentucky, New Hampshire and English 
cases I have cited are only a random sample - eye reactions 
are extremely common. 

Prior to her second hypnotic session - which turned out to be 
more startling even than her first - Virginia discussed with Dr. 
Clamar and me some further specific details which she had consciously 
recalled. Hypnosis is an odd process in that most frequently 
after the subject comes out of the trance he or she continues 
to remember things. It is a little like turning off the garden 
hose: the flow immediately slows, ebbs, and finally trickles to a 
stop - the turn of the valve does not produce instantaneous results. 
In a conversation which was, of course, recorded at the time, Virginia 
said this about the equipment which made the cut on her 
leg: 

"It was something like dental equipment. but much smoother. 
It didn't look like something abrasive or scary; it was more like, 
maybe half the size of your torso,  mostly smooth like a metal 



 

box with rectangular contours, but rounded, and with fixtures that 
might pull out, you know, to do things like dental equipment does. 
It's retractable but nothing so sharp and crude as that,    more 
like soft contours. more like a tentacle. It was as though the thing 
that touched me was just like a massager, like those electric massagers, 
the long ones. Just something simple - looking, almost a tubular 
thing. It reached out and just laid against my leg. It looked to 
be all metal. No obvious cutting edges or anything like that. It 
didn't have any real evidences of fine instrumentation, you know, 
cutting edges or plucking edges or filing edges." Just a simple. 
tubular object, which came out of a boxlike instrument on the end 
of a retractable arm. I asked if she noticed any sound. 

"A soft vibration, maybe,  I think I felt it, but I don't think 
I heard it." 

David Stephens. whose 1975 abduction in Maine I have already 
mentioned. described lying on a table near a machine 
which "looked square, had lights on the left side of the front. and it 
had an arm coming out" with something on the end of it, "like 
some kind of X - ray machine or something."8 Betty Hill described a 
device, which was like a letter opener in shape, which scraped over 
her arm.9 One of the Kentucky abductees recalls an elongated bullet - 
shaped object about an inch - and - one - half in diameter being 
placed on her chest.10 It seems to me these witnesses are trying to 
describe the same equipment through the use of various homely 
images, with varying degrees of success. Virginia's "elongated 
massager" image describes an object conventionally about six or 
seven inches long by about one - and - one - half inches in diameter, 
which accords nicely with Elaine Thomas's "bullet shaped" cylindrical - 
object "about one - and - one - half inches in diameter"; 
this silhouette, of course, is not unlike that of a letter opener. And 
most interesting is the persistent "neutrality" of the description an 
object that seems efficient and totally unspectacular in appearance. 
It constitutes the exact opposite of the complicated Star 
Wars gadgetry so inescapable in pop culture. Virginia's "machine 
gains validity to me by virtue of its plainness and simplicity. 

When Ted Bloecher listened to the tape of Virginia's hypnotic 
session, we were able to discuss at length the new factors which it 
presented. First of all. as I've mentioned before, the Hill case of 
1961, which surfaced only in 1964, was for many years the earliest 
abduction case which had been satisfactorily investigated and 
eventually accepted by most UFO investigators. But here we were 




with a case that preceded it by eleven years! A few other cases 
earlier than 1961 had come to light in the years following John 
Fuller's book on Betty and Barney Hill, and a few had been rather 
summarily studied, though very few had been explored through 
hypnosis. Here, we had an unfolding case with an eminently intelligent 
and credible witness, who bore a physical trace - Virginia's 
very noticeable scar. (see illustration section) 

Even more important was our realization at that moment that 
Virginia, like Steven Kilburn, had no conscious recall of a UFO 
sighting. When these two cases, which we had uncovered, were 
seen in context with the "Patty Price" case of 197311 and the Judy 
Kendall case, we knew that there was a sub - group within the UFO 
abduction spectrum: cases in which people are abducted and all 
memory traces of a UFO sighting are subsequently suppressed. As 
Steven wondered aloud on NBC's UFO presentation, how many 
people may have had this experience without knowing it? And 
how many years has it been going on? 

Ted Bloecher, drawing on his mental storage files, pointed out 
that a significant number of humanoid cases over the last decades 
involved sightings by children, and many of these took place in 
rural settings. In dozens of instances, children reported that, while 
they were outside playing, one or two small men wearing strange 
silvery or gray costumes approached them and then departed as 
suddenly as they had appeared. How many of these cases, we 
wondered, might have involved time lapses that a six - year - old girl 
or a ten - year - old boy, playing alone in the afternoon, would never 
have noticed? What were the dimensions of the problem? It was as 
if our classic type of abduction case - the automobile being 
stopped at night as a glowing object descends - may represent 
only a narrow aspect of the phenomenon. 

And what were "they" doing with a six - year - old child, and 
why did they need to take a "little, bitty piece" of her? What was 
the problem or "puzzle" they were working on? Most of the abduction 
cases on record involved some kind of sample taking during 
the examination, if that last term is indeed even remotely accurate; 
skin samples, blood samples. hair samples,12 almost everything 
one could imagine, but this seemed somehow more serious 
piece of her flesh, a deep incision across many layers of skin and 
muscle. 

One of the differences between Virginia's encounter and the 
other abduction reports we have been considering is her apparent 



 

lack of any fear. It is important, first of all, to remember that her 
story begins when she is already inside the examining room of the 
UFO. The reader will recall that the most consistently frightening 
time is at the outset of the experience when the abductee is simultaneously 
paralyzed and approached by the captors. Even after 
her second hypnotic session (the subject of chapter 8), Virginia still 
had not remembered in detail that section of her encounter, so one 
can assume her unconscious mind effectively censored out the 
"bad part." The six - year - old child who underwent this extraordinary 
adventure probably handled it differently than many 
adults - and also might have been treated differently by her captors. 
Obviously. these two sets of variables exist in each abduction 
experience. 

The Betty and Barney Hill case of 196113 presents a classic 
illustration of variations in both treatment by the UFO occupants 
and reactions on the part of the captives. The Hills were driving 
through New Hampshire's White Mountains, returning from a vacation, 
when they saw a moving light, which seemed to be slowly 
following them. Eventual1y, they are "lured" off the main highway. 
They stop their car and are approached by a group of men. 
Betty is led to the landed UFO by her captors; as she walks. she 
sees Barney behind her, being assisted by his captors. His eyes are 
closed and he appears to be asleep. "I turn around and I say, 'Barney! 
Wake up! Barney! Why don’t you wake up?' And he doesn't 

'

pay attention." Under hypnosis, Barney said he felt as if he were 
floating. He did not remember Betty calling him. He noticed the 
next morning that the tops of his shoes were scuffed, and the probable 
cause emerged, again through hypnosis; he recalled being 
dragged up the ramp and into the UFO. 

In microcosm, two different modes of treatment by the UFO 
occupants are visible here: Barney Hill, a large, well - built male, is 
rendered almost senseless and is more or less dragged aboard the 
ship. Betty Hill. smaller and female, is walked aboard and remains 
quite conscious throughout. The patterns of treatment continue 
inside. Barney is only vaguely conscious during the examination 
itself. Betty, on the other hand, is not only fully awake. but 
communicates at length with one of the occupants. As we shall 
see, she is asked some of the same questions that Virginia Horton 
is asked in a colloquy that appears to be more intelligence - testing 
than in formation - gathering. 

The Hills' subsequent reactions were as different as their experiences had been. After the terror she felt at the beginning of 
her kidnapping, Betty handled herself with equanimity, even going 
so far as to question her captors about their origin, and to ask 
for an artifact to prove the experience really happened.14 In the 
following months, before her experience was recalled through 
hypnosis, Betty's life was relatively untroubled. But, for Barney, 
the buried memories of his encounter had drastic results. Nightmares, 
insomnia, and a recurring ulcer led him to seek psychiatric 
help, and it was this decision which resulted in his trying hypnosis 
in the first place. 

Applying these patterns to the cases we have been examining, 
one can see that Virginia Horton's treatment by her abductors, as 
well as her reactions to them, resemble Betty Hill's, while Steven 
Kilburn, Howard Rich, Mac McMahon, and David Oldham are 
handled - and respond - more like Barney Hill. A possibly pertinent 
analogy comes to mind from the human context. When zoologists 
tranquilize, capture, and tag moose or elk or deer to facilitate 
the study of their migratory habits and other behaviour, slightly 
different dosages and procedures are followed for an aggressive 
buck than for the smaller, less - dangerous does and fawns. One 
can easily imagine how "zoologists" from outside our world might 
also devise different methods of handling their various human 
specimen. Virginia Horton's experience, then, so different in tone 
from Steven's or Howard's or Mac's experience, is perhaps more 
due to her sex and age than it is to any basic differences in the 
attitudes or purposes of her abductors. 




Abrupt and rather drastic reversals of theory have occurred 
from time to time among UFO investigators and researchers. It 
was once generally thought that, if a person reporting a UFO encounter 
had a prior interest in the subject, that person's report 
should be automatically discounted. Prior interest meant contamination 
and therefore unreliability. Although there is a rationale 
for that inference, the validity of the opposite proposition eluded 
investigators for years. Psychological theory finally alerted us to 
the fact that someone with a hidden, traumatic UFO experience 
might later on be unconsciously drawn to the subject. Indeed, a 
particular kind of intense and inward curiosity about the UFO 
phenomenon might be motivated by a forgotten but real abduction 
experience. 

During the five years I've been actively involved in UFO investigations 
and research, I've met four people whose solitary and 
rather obsessive interest in the subject, coupled with a few other 
indications, suggested to me that they might very well be harbouring 
unconscious memories of UFO encounters. I met one of these. 
a man whom I'll call Philip Osborne, through his profession: he 
works in the news media and in 1978 was doing a piece on UFOs. I 
noticed that his interest in the subject had a particular edge to it. It 
was almost as if he accepted too much, too easily. He seemed comfortable 
with what, to others, was very strange case material. I 
vividly remember my own skepticism in 1965 when I first heard 
details of the Betty and Barney Hill case. It seemed grotesque and 



inconceivable. It wasn't until the abduction pattern began to repeat 
itself that I swallowed my nervous prejudgment and looked 
at the evidence more objectively. I mentioned this case and my 
original reaction to Philip, and he said, "I remember when I first 
heard about it, too. It seemed perfectly logical to me. I didn't doubt 
for a second that the Hills had been abducted." 

Philip Osborne is thirty - seven years old and lives not too far 
from me in New York's Greenwich Village. He is a practica1, 
tough professional in a highly competitive field. He is not the kind 
of man who is easily taken in, and, in fact, his profession demands 
skeptical hard-headedness. Over the years, I have helped a number 
of other people who were doing articles on the UFO phenomenon 
by supplying information on current investigations. Most 
have been curious but detached in a way that implies: "This material 
is interesting, but I can't really get involved in something so 
controversial and strange. I'll take what I need, write it up, and try 
to forget about it." Philip was decidedly different. He seemed at 
home with it, even to the point of drawing inferences and noticing 
subtle details and correspondences that I had missed. 

I hadn't been in touch with Philip for perhaps a month or so 
after the NBC UFO documentary had been aired. but then one 
day he called me. He had seen the program and wanted to talk 
about it. The thing that had most struck him, he said, was Steven 
Kilburn's remark that, if this UFO encounter had happened to 
him, it could have happened to anyone. Philip said he'd been 
searching his memory for any event in his past that might indicate 
a similar forgotten experience. Something had happened very recently 
that made him remember an odd experience he had years 
before in college. A few weeks after the NBC program, he had 
awakened in his apartment in the middle of the night absolutely 
paralyzed. He could not move, could not turn his head, could not 
even call out for help. This terrifying state lasted a minute or so 
and only gradually did he regain control of his body. 

Almost immediately, he recalled the earlier, very similar, experience. 
It happened when he was attending Carnegie Tech in 
Pittsburgh, probably in 1964. He was living in a small third - floor 
room in a house on Fifth Avenue. He awakened one night and 
found himself totally paralyzed. He had not been dreaming; there 
was nothing to prepare him for this total usurpation of contro1. He 
could not call for help. Worst of all. he sensed someone or some.. 



 

thing - a presence - in the room with him. His fear lessened as the 
paralysis ebbed away, but so frightened was he still that he got up, 
put on his clothes, and went outside to take a walk. 

There was more. He recalled one other odd experience, and 
this from his early childhood. 

This is something else that I keep coming back to. When I was 
a child my parents took me on a vacation to the Smoky Mountains 
in Tennessee. I think it was my brother who left his coat behind at 
a mountaintop picnic site where we had had lunch, and we didn't 
miss it until later. 1 remember we had to drive back up after dark 
to look for it, and for some reason it was very frightening. I just 
have the feeling that something might have happened to me then. 
There's really nothing specific, but I've just always remembered 
that time as being very strange and very frightening. Maybe it was 
just the drive up the mountain in the dark, but my mind keeps 
coming back to that time for some reason. 

These incidents, taken together, seem to be not much weightier 
than the indications that we had in the Steven Kilburn case. 
Superficially, this case appeared hardly worth pursuing, yet Philip 
came equipped with that other clue I've mentioned - a very definite 
and resonant prior interest in the UFO subject. He mentioned 
an interesting detail about the very recent paralysis incident in his 
New York apartment. As he struggled to call for help, he thought 
of his older brother and wanted to call his name. He said he had 
not seen his brother for years, and that they had never been particularly 
close. It registered in my mind, though, that he and his 
brother had been together in the Tennessee episode, and that a 
very old memory linking the two incidents was perhaps trying to 
surface. We talked about pursuing these incidents through hypnosis, 
and he agreed. 

A few days later, Ted and I met Philip at my studio. Our goal] 
was to get down the consciously remembered details of what were 
now three distinct events: the childhood experience on the mountaintop, 
the 1964 Pittsburgh paralysis incident with a "presence" 
sensed in the room, and, finally, in 1979, the New York paralysis 
incident. It was necessary to have specific information for Dr. Clamar 
to use in setting the scene during the hypnotic regression. 
Also, we had to decide which incidents we would go into during 
the first session and which would be postponed until later. The 

three of us sat around the dining room table, Ted and I with pads 
and pencils at the ready, as Philip supplied us with whatever details 
he could recall. And then, in his calm, even voice he added 
one new element - a bombshell. "Do you think," he asked, "there 
is any reason to go into the question of my scar?" 

"What scar?" Ted and I asked with one voice. 

I've always had this scar since childhood," he explained, 
"and no one can remember how I got it. My mother can't remember 
and neither can I. It just seems that one day, there it was." The 
scar was about three inches long and perfectly straight. It was 
located at the outer juncture of his thigh and hip, but other than 
this difference in the location of the cut, the situation eerily 
brought to mind the Virginia Horton case. 

Philip thought that his unsettling trip to the Great Smokies 
took place when he was either six or seven years old. Since he was 
born in 1943 - the same year as Virginia - and the vacation most 
likely occurred in the summer, it is very possible that he received 
his "scar of unknown origin" exactly the same summer as Virginia 
received hers! By this time, I was fairly sure that Virginia Horton's 
second peculiar adventure - her disappearance at a family picnic 
in France and her reappearance sometime later, her blouse 
stained with "blood of unknown origin" - would turn out to be 
another abduction. She was scheduled for her second hypnotic 
session on May 16. So another disturbing parallel presented itself, 
the possibility that Virginia and Philip were each abducted at age 
six in the summer of 1950, and then reabducted as young adults at 
ages sixteen and twenty respectively. The coincidences involved 
if this thesis turned out to be correct seemed incredible. 

On April 28, 1979, Ted Bloecher, Philip, and I gathered at Dr. 
Clamar's office for Philip's first hypnotic session. We had decided 
to concentrate on the original childhood experience in the mountains 
of Tennessee. Dr. Clamar went through her preliminary interview 
and "dry run" session, after which Philip decided that he 
wanted to continue directly into his memories of that 1949 or 1950 
summer vacation. It was during this session that I really saw how 
differently people can react under hypnosis. Philip was silent for 
long, long periods. The small muscles in his face worked, his eyes 
seemed to be active behind their lids, and he appeared to be very 
reluctant to share what he was experiencing. He was obviously 
undergoing a great deal of fear, but it was internalized, and not 
allowed to break into the open. Characteristically, he would, under questioning, begin to describe an image. Then he would fall 
silent, his closed eyes moving in agitation, his hands trembling. 
His breathing would become irregular and minutes would pass 
without a word. Then he would say, "I think I want to forget 
what's happening and think of something different." It was as if an 
intensely vivid narrative had passed through his mind; we had 
read the results in his face and body, but we had been denied the 
facts. Occasionally, he would describe what was happening, but 
more often, he experienced his memories in nervous, agitated silence. 
Though the transcript of his first session will be presented 
in isolated sections, a classic abduction scenario did emerge. 

Dr. Clamar puts Philip under hypnosis, and returns him to 
"that early period in your life when you were at the Smoky Mountain 
National Park with your family, your brother, and your sister. 
You're all there together as a family having fun,   " 

Philip's observations come after .a few minutes of silence and 
half - phrases. 

PO: 
I'm not,    I'm not experiencing any scenes. I just see 
something that looks like the,  like the upper part of a 
geodesic dome. (Very long pause. Quiet, continuous agitation.) 
AC: What are you feeling as you see this scene? 
PO: Uh,    nothing. That I'd just as soon calm myself 
 I'll think of something else. 

My eyes seem to be jumping around a lot. It's, when 
I think about that that my eyes jump around a lot. 
AC: Is there a light there that makes them jump around? 
PO: Yes. It's just bright and it's in sections like a geodesic dome. 

(Long pause. Agitation.) 
AC: What's happening? 
PO: I'm trying to uh, uh,    forget about it. I'm just trying 
to relax. 
AC: Would you like a minute out to rest a moment? 
PO: Yes. 

(Dr. Clamor allows two or three minutes to pass. Philip seems 
calm and relaxed. After another long pause, she resumes her 
questioning.) 


AG: Tell me what's happening now. 
PO: (Agitated, restless) I don't know,  (whispers). I don't 
know. 

[After another long unsettling period with only a few exchanges, 
Philip speaks again.) 
PO: I would just like to relax more. I would like to relax more 
deeply. 

AG: 
You would like for me to relax you more deeply? 

PO: 
Yes. I would like for you to do that. 

(Dr. Glomar induces a deeper trance.) 

PO: 
I'd just like to lie in the sun. 

AC: 
Let yourself sink,    visualize yourself on a nice sunny 
beach. wide, sandy beach. You lie on a towel feeling very, 
very peaceful. Relaxed, peaceful. Peaceful and relaxed. 
(Long, long pause ensues.) 

PO: 
(Whispering) I want some rest. I saw that dome again. 

AC: 
Would you like to tell me what you saw, or do you want to 
keep it to yourself? 

PO: 
Yes, a h. I saw it as a,  sphere,  and then all of a 
sudden I'm just really going towards it very fast, and it just 
sort of consumes me all around. There's light all around. 
And then I felt like I was travelling very fast. (Pause) I feel 
like I'm inside. 

AC: 
How are you feeling? 

PO: It's not as if I'm standing. I'm just sort of being, that's all. 
I feel that there is a dome overhead and that one - fourth 
of it is hinged and it lifts up so that there is a wedge open. 
That's all,    everything just seems very amorphous and 
things just sort of floating past,    that's all. {Pause) 

But I do think of that scar. I feel like I shouldn't. but I 
do. 

AC: 
Would you like to talk to your scar? 

PO: 
(Nervously) No. 

AG: 
Why don't you ask it anything you want to? 

PO: 
(Whispering) I,    don't think so. . 

AC: 
How do you feel about the scar? 

PO: 
Well, I,    it just seems so silly, but I see something like 
a,    I almost. I see a hand. It's very shiny. But I 
don't, ah,    see it really. 

* * 
* 



 

(Again, Dr, Clamar suggests he relax more deeply, and if be 
wishes to, dream for a few minutes) 

PO: (After a few moments.) I don't really have a dream exactly 
, just a feeling, that's all. It's not just . just a 
feeling, that's all. I have the feeling that it just sort of goes 
back together by itself. (Pause) But I do have light all 
around. I feel better than I did. 
AC: What makes you feel better? 
PO: I don't know. I just feel ah,    not as frightened as before. 
There were all kinds of things zooming past me. I'm more 
relaxed now. I just feel like I'm lying there. 

(After a few more exchanges, long pauses, and subtle agitation on 
Philip's part, Dr. Clamor brings him out of the trance. Her instructions 
are worth quoting.] 

AC: 
You are going to feel very, very deeply relaxed. Whatever 
thoughts or feelings you have in your mind or expressed in 
your body through tension, will sort themselves out in the 
ensuing days and increasingly, with each passing day, you 
are going to feel much, much more deeply peaceful. Whatever 
confusing thoughts, disordered thoughts, whatever 
thoughts you have running around in your head that are 
also reflected in how you hold your body, how your body 
feels in terms of relaxation or tension, are going to sort 
themselves out, so that, in the ensuing days and weeks, you 
are going to find yourself feeling much, much more deeply 
relaxed, much more peaceful. In the future, should I hypnotize 
you again and ask you to relieve these experiences, 
you are going to find it considerably easier because they 
will have sorted themselves out into a much, much more 
orderly, organized fashion, and you are going to be feeling 
very comfortable in looking at them, addressing them, reexperiencing 
them, knowing that they are free from any 
emotion, tension, or anxiety. In the future. should you address 
yourself to these experiences. you will feel comfortable 
with the world around you, comfortable with your 
thoughts, your experiences. your feelings,    comfortable 
with the world around you in every way. I will count from 




one to five,    (and her final instructions returned Philip 
to consciousness). 

Philip appeared somewhat drained of energy when he came 
out of the trance. I felt that very large struggles had taken place in 
silence, and that we had been given only occasional glimpses of 
their causes. But as Ted and I questioned him, at least one of the 
reasons for Philip's strained responses became clear - he had 
more or less refused to describe imagery or events that seemed 
"too pat," too close to what he and we might have expected in a 
UFO encounter. It was an odd kind of self - censoring about which 
Philip was ultimately as ambivalent as we. 

"I was very conscious through most of it of the whole purpose 
of the thing, and I felt like the things therefore that I was seeing 
were probably just imaginary." 

Ted asked, "Then, essentially, were you editorializing what 
you were actually experiencing?" 

"Right. In other words, I would see something and I would 
say to myself in effect, 'Well, that's what I'm supposed to see." So 
therefore,    probably this is just the process of imagination. But 
I felt like I was sort of hurtling through space actually, and it was 
just,  I was trying to put the brakes on." 

Ted wanted clarification. "Do you mean space literally, or 
through a particular space?" 

"Well, I did see things like stars, etc., again, which in my mind 
I just said, you know, 'That's too appropriate.' But once I got into 
this illuminated sort of thing, all around it was as if the one end 
just sort of vanished and I was just hurtling very quickly in one 
direction . . ." 

Ted asked, "Did the movement follow the experience of feeling 
like you were inside of it?" 

"First of all, I could feel that I was outside of it and I was 
looking at a dome which was almost like a nuclear reactor or 
something, that it was divided up into triangles like a geodesic 
dome, and that it was illuminated, and I started zooming towards it 
very quickly and then just sort of penetrated it and was inside of it, 
and then it was as if I was inside of this brightly illuminated thing, 
and then that just sort of broke away at one end and I was just kind 
of hurtling through space,   . The whole thing was very abstract, 
but I saw the parking lot. I mean, I imagined that I went to 



162  

the parking lot first and then that (the domed object) was sort of 
what appeared. I'm not saying,    I'm not saying that it was in 
the parking lot, but I'm just saying that that's the next thing my 
mind went to." 

A few questions and answers passed back and forth, and then 
Philip continued. 

"I was looking at the bottom side of it which was quite dark 
and the impression was darkness all around. only that (the bottom} 
was even darker than the darkness. And then, at one point, I sort 
of sensed the dome on top of it. again, which is very bad (chuckles) 
but which was incredibly brilliant metallically,  you know. a 
very polished surface,   . It's as if 1 had the power to mentally 
turn the disk over, I would be able to see a dome that was very 
brightly reflective,    . Anyhow, the predominant impression 
was that it was very shiny and metallic and against a very dark 

nothing background." 
I brought up a different issue. "You mentioned being 
afraid . . ." 

"That was because I was hurtling through space and,  I 
just had the feeling I wanted to put the brakes on. I just wanted to 
withdraw from that because,    I don't know why,   . It was 
just that the initial impression of it was .. . 

Dr. Clamar asks, "Feeling out of control?" 

"Yes. Right. right!" 

Shortly thereafter, we left Dr. Clamar's office and walked 
down Lexington Avenue to a luncheonette. In weighing the over.. 
all situation, we had an ambiguous factor to evaluate - Philip's 
strong hesitancy about accepting the imagery and events his mind 
called up during hypnosis. And yet in almost every simi1ar hypnotic 
session I could remember, the subject at some point said 
something like "This can't be happening," or "This must be a 
dream"  - exactly what each of us would say in real life if one night 
we found ourselves in a deserted parking lot on a dark mountaintop, 
and encountered a large, domed, metallic craft of some sort. 
Clearly. more sessions would be required if Philip was to overcome 
his block about reporting what he was experiencing. In the 
meantime, however, certain signs were unmistakable. His fear 
was obvious to all of us, as was the sense he conveyed of living 
through a distinct and disturbing series of events which he did not 
wish to describe. Philip's account of travelling through the air and 
merging with the object through an open triangular panel was a 
new one to me, hut Dr. Clamar sensed that his fear of the headlong 

flight was basically a fear of losing control; in other words, more 
metaphorical, possibly, than literal. His description of the UFO as 
resembling the upper part of a geodesic dome is actually quite 
similar to a description given by six witnesses in a 1975 Snowflake, 
Arizona, close encounter.

Philip's second hypnotic session took place the following 
week. Once more, his behavior in the trance state was quite different from that of most subjects I had observed. Long pauses 
occurred frequently, some lasting for five minutes or more. Characteristically, Philip would say something like, "I see a machine 
above me which has a kind of large eye,    " Silence would then 
ensue lasting minutes while we observed nervous eye movements 
behind his closed lids, and agitation in both his hands and his 
breathing. Then he would say something like, I'm not sure I see 
it,    I think it's my imagination,   . It's gone now. And then 
he would appear calmer, more relaxed. The transcript which follows is my attempt to include what seemed to be firm observation 
and to drop out the frequent hesitations and semidenials. It is 
more important at this point to see if these observations form a 
coherent and specific whole which is consistent from session to 
session than it is to worry over his frequent uncertainties. I leave 
to the reader's intuitive skill the task of sorting out the uncomfortable mix of Philip's imagination, his over scrupulousness and the 
possibility of a strong, externally imposed fear. 

The trance is induced, and Dr. Clamar asks Philip to concentrate upon the image of his leg. She asks if he can see the scar. 

PO: 
Well, I see sort of an open cut maybe, or maybe a 
scab,  . As I touch it, I don't feel any pain. (Long pause.) 
It's just I can't remember how I got that scar. 

AC: 
Why don't you let yourself just dream about how you might 
have gotten that scar - where it came from. 

PO: 
(Long pause) Well, I don't really know. I just sort of see, ah, 
it isn't as if I actually see it happen . I sort of felt more 
as if I don't really remember an accident . I just sort of 
felt as if perhaps it was cut open, and then I see a sort of a 
representation of just being opened up very cleanly and 
something taken out and then just put right back together, 
and I did have sort of a sensation of lying on a table, but I 
can't see it too well, but it looks like - I just think that it's a 
hospital 

AC: 
What does it look like it might be? 



PO: 

PO: 

(Dr. Clamor asks what's happening.) 


 

Well, I just sort of see whiteness I get sort of the impression of being carried somewhere else,  like on a 
stretcher,    {long pause). 

Well, I sort of saw that hand, that metallic hand that I saw 
last week only that is not really what it looks like. For a 
moment, I sort of thought I had a glimpse of it, but I didn't. 
Couldn't really see it,  I saw it as at first a sort of mechanical 
hand of the type that you see in, ah, robot hands 
and for handling nuclear materials and that sort of thing. 
But I don't think that's it. exactly. The one thing 
that,    the sensation that I think is right about that first 
hand is the fact that there is something that' s very, very brilliant, 
very polished. A metallic surface, and I had the impression 
of light reflecting off it, and then l did have the 
impression of a very bright light shining on me. But I don't 
think it was from . . Well, at least at one point, it is more 

. 

to the side,    I'm not sure if there is a light shining on me 
from that table. (Long pause.) 
I see that same thing I saw before .. very

. 

round,    the thing, a large, illuminated, round spherical 
thing (the UFO). I'm not quite as much aware of the divisions, 
and, ah, for some reason, it's not putting down as 
much light. (Pause} It's not putting out as much light,

, 

but I don't know why, but when I see it, I just sort of move 
and glide towards it and just dissolve into it. (Pause.} I'm 
trying to figure out if it's supported from the ground or if it's 
just in the air. I have the impression of vertical supports 
from the ground,    and there are times when it seems 
quite gigantic. (Long pause.} 

Above me, I just have the feeling of some sort of mechanical 
apparatus, but I can't see anything very clearly. It's 
just an impression. 

I do see some abstract images that I just couldn't describe. 
(Long pause.] I feel like, if I approach it in the right 
way, it can have a great calming effect, but I don't really 
know how. Because it can be either very calming or very. 
ah, well sort of an unpleasant thing. It can have,    sometimes 
I feel 1ike there is a great calming effect, (Pause.) 

. 

I just find myself sort of relaxing and letting it alone. 




AC: 
At the count of three, you are going to find it much, much 
easier to see,  one,  two,  three. 

PO: 
Well, ah, I had seen something that was sort of, kind of a 
wall arrangement as if it was decorated with some kind of 
painting and there was something on that and there was a 
kind of ah, an, urn, an eye motif on that, but it was not just a 
shape, just the almond shape, but when you counted to 
three, it turned to a large eye that was staring at me. The eye 
is either disembodied or else there is a person's face is 
blackened so that just the eye is apparent.,    It's just 
very in tense and piercing. 

AC: How does it make you feel? 
PO: At first, it wasn't very pleasant. I saw it more clearly at first. 
But I don't see it so much now. 

(Dr. Clamor asks Philip how old he is as this is happening.) 

PO: 
I can't see myself but the,    number - eight pops into my 
mind. (Pause) I can see a seven too. 

(She asks what he is wearing.) 

PO: 
Well,  I see sort of a plaid from a shirt and maybe short 

pants. 
AC: Do you remember wearing a jacket? 
PO: Well, I didn't, but I can imagine myself in a coat. (Pause) I 

guess it's a leather jacket (long pause). 

AC: 
You said that you could imagine yourself in that 
coat. Which coat? Can you tell me a little bit more 
about the jacket? 

PO: 
It looks sort of like a brown leather jacket, a short waist


length jacket. It's kind of, ah, beat up a little bit. 
AC: Do you like that jacket? 
PO: I don't know. I didn't even know I had a jacket like 

that. 
,   

The session continued, but shifted its focus to the later Pittsburgh 
incident, which we will consider in a moment. Meanwhile, 
so many fascinating parallels between Philip's and Virginia Horton's accounts had surfaced that they bear immediate consideration. I asked Philip afterwards if the hand that he remembered the 
one with the metallic fingers - was a different image from the 



 

robot arm which he apparently associated with the cutting of his 
leg, and he answered affirmatively. 

"They weren't versions of each other?" I asked. 

"No, it's as if they both are images. They come into my mind: 
they are suggesting some other image like the hand is more or less 
like a glove from a piece of medieval armor, only much more 
shiny." 

"Medieval armour, of course, is jointed," I continued. "Was 
this jointed?" 
"Right. In other words, you have the feeling that each of the 
separate fingers had separate little sections,  " 

So there were two distinct images - a jointed metal hand, and 
a less - articulated robotlike arm which seems to have done the 
actual cutting. His description under hypnosis was of "a sort of 
mechanical hand of the type that you see in robot hands and for 
handling nuclear materials and that sort of thing." Virginia Horton 
had described the way she was cut in, this way: "It's as though it's 
done remotely,   Have you seen those things where you put 
your hands in when they handle radioactive material? Your hands 
go in and you handle instruments and then, in a remote location, 
something happens. It's like that. I don't think they have any direct 
contact with me physically." Again, two witnesses who had never 
met or spoken to each other use the same metaphor to describe a 
particular aspect of their UFO experiences. And apart from Philip's 
recollection of a metallic hand and Virginia's sense of disembodied 
communication, neither recalled any UFO occupants. Virginia 
described the moment of the incision this way: "They said, 

we'll just stop it from bleeding.' So whatever they do. they do 
it, you know, like this, and then it just closes itself and stops bleeding." 
Earlier, she said they told her that they needed a "little bitty 
piece of her" for "understanding." Philip put it this way: "I just 
sort of felt as if perhaps it was cut open, and then I see a sort of 
representation of just being opened up very cleanly and something 
taken out, and then just put right back together." The rooms 
in which the operations took place are also described similarly. 
Virginia said, "There are lots of things to catch my eyes: things that 
shine, they're sparkly, like crystals or like instrumentation - but 
they're so pretty that they don't distinguish in my eyes between 
whether they are things or art." Philip said that he had seen something, 
"Kind of a wall arrangement, as if it was decorated with 
some kind of painting and there was something on that and there 



was kind of an eye motif on that." I have listened to many 
hypnotic sessions and read many transcripts; the only two people 
who ever mentioned the words "art" and "painting" were, again, 
Virginia and Philip. One could almost believe that the ship or 
ships in use in 1950, the physical operation itself - removing a section of flesh, and the methods of the UFO occupants were identical, as were the ages of the abductees and the time of their abductions. 
So far, the concordances were amazing. Even the way I had 
heard of their cases was identical - as a result of the NBC broadcast. 
Over the years, I have tried to train myself to discount the 
calm tone of voice a witness will often use to make an odd or 
illogical statement seem the most natural thing in the world. If the 
case involves a time lapse, and therefore a degree of memory control, 
witnesses will often describe their strange behaviour as eminently 
logical. Philip awoke in his Pittsburgh bedroom paralyzed 
and sensing a "presence" in the room. So terrified had he been, he 
said, that he got up, got dressed, and went outside. So natural was 
the way he recounted it that it took me awhile to realize that his 
behaviour was, on the face of it, most unusual. I tried to think what I 
would have done had I been in his place. First. I would have 
turned all the lights on, perhaps put on the radio or TV, and if I 
had been really terrified, I would have gone to awaken someone 
else in the house just to talk the fear out of my system. The very 
last thing I would have done would have been to go for a walk at 
three A.M. outside in the dark, where the "presence" might be lurking. 
Prior to this hypnotic regression, I asked Philip if he remembered 
where he walked to that night. Had there been an all - night 
delicatessen nearby or a bar or someplace where he could rub 
elbows with other humans? 

I offer the following transcript as illustration of the way external 
control of the subject's memory can not only block out actual 
events, but also somehow "fill in" with explanations which ultimately 
make no sense. One can feel Philip's uncertainty growing 
as he talks about the experience. 

PO: 
I probably just walked around the block, that's 
all. The immediate vicinity was a residential area, 
and if you walked about four or five blocks, you came to a 
commercial area. I really don't remember where I 
walked. 





BH: 
It is, when you think about it, unusual that you would, in 
being frightened, that you would actually get up and go out· 
side. 

PO: 
(Laughs) Well, that's unusual but, you know, this room - this 
was quite a small room, and it would tend to get rather 
claustrophobic at times, and if something like that happened in this little room, you know, all of a sudden, well, I 
don't know, I,    I was not in the habit of getting out and 
walking around blocks at night certainly, but. it just 
seemed like the thing to do at the time. 

BH: 
Well, I just think that,    the only reason to ask questions 
about it is that it was an event you had singled out as being 
unusual to you at the time. 

PO: 
It was. 

BH: 
And in thinking it over, it seemed unusual that,    well in 
my situation, if I were frightened, I would turn on the 
lights,    and I wouldn't think of going outside 
,   where, theoretically, the thing is that is frightening me. 
whatever it may be. 

PO: 
That's true unless I associated the thing with the 

.

room,    but it's strange because I just don't know .. I 
think it was just that I figured that I needed the cool 
air. Probably I was awakened at that point and 
couldn't just lie back down and go to sleep right away so 
that was something to do. 

BH: 
And especially in a very small room. 

PO: Yeah. Well, I had never thought of it, to be honest. I had 
certainly never thought of that, but I, uh who knows? I,  

don't. 
BH: What we've got to do is try to run down all the possibilities. 


PO: 
I never thought of that. That's interesting {chuckles) to be 
honest with you. Now that you mention it. I never did think 
about that, of course. Well, I don't know. I certainly don't 
have any recollection of anything happening. 


BH: 
I'm not necessarily convinced about any one particular incident here. The only reason I even ask these questions is. I 
was curious what the physical layout was to see if it would 
have been even remotely a natural thing for you to get up 
and run down the street to get coffee. 

PO: 
We1l. now. I wouldn’t,    I certainly don't think I've any 


recollection of doing that. I probably would I have a 
recollection of,  or it seems to me,  I must have 
gone, oh, let me see. If you were to go more or less in 
the direction of the back of the house, there was a road that 
sloped up this same hillside and, up on top of that area, 
there are a number of,  three or four large mansions, 
with fairly large grounds that are unoccupied or were unoccupied 
at the time. One was the old Heinz mansion. 
BH: But you probably walked the other direction. You wouldn’t 
have gone up the hill. 
PO: No, I don't think I would have gone up there. That was the 
route I would pick in walking to school, but I don't think I 
would have then. 
BH: Not at night. 
PO: No, I don't think I would have done that in the middle of 
the night. 

Philip's rationalizations for his unusual behavior were coming 
slowly unravelled. All of the reasons for his three A.M. stroll, 
which he delivered in such a natural tone of voice, began to seem 
absurd to both of us. His final recollection was of the hill behind 
his house, where several deserted mansions sat on rambling 
grounds, a memory which I realized was potentially significant. If 
Philip, like Howard Rich, had been visited in his bedroom by 
some kind of controlling force and then "led" up the hill to the 
grounds of the deserted Heinz mansion, an abduction could have 
been physically carried out with little chance of interruption. 

The latter part of Philip's second hypnotic session was taken 
up with the Pittsburgh incident. 

AC: Let yourself relax. At the count of three, you are going to 

find yourself back in college. You are feeling very relaxed. 

One,    two,    three. 
PO: long pause) I can see that room a little bit more clearly. 
AC: Would you please describe it? 
PO: It's small and I see a face in the window. The bed was on 

the left. There was a sloping wall because of the roof, and 
there was a projection out toward where the window was. 
and it was painted a different sort of dull yellow there for 
some reason, and the rest were painted white. And there 
were old - fashioned bookcases with glass covers that lift up 



 

high on either side of the window against the wall. And I 
was just very curious about that presence at the window. 
But I can't exactly put myself back into that,    I can't 
exactly experience that event, though. 

AC: 
Let yourself drift deeper and deeper. Your mind and the 
images will become much more available to you than they 
ever have been before. 

PO: (Very long pause) I see it as I saw it then,    I do think 
that I must have sensed that light, like I just sensed 
now,  but at the time, I was only aware of a sort of a 
silhouette and just now I rea1ly did become more aware of a 
figure,   . It did change. As I look at it. it really sort 
of eludes my efforts to look at it. But I did have the 
impression that this head was kind of embryo like - shaped. 
These eyes were really sort of tucked into the forehead. A 
big forehead, but the eyes are metallic. {whispers inaudibly}. 
Something's strange,    but anyhow I just associate 
this with the window and this light that's coming 
through. But it's not a very big window,  two 
small windows. actually. Green window shades. The old-fashioned 
kind. {Long pause.) But I do . I sort of have 
the impression of someone saying that it's O.K. now (pause]. 
I don’t know why, originally, it was dark in the room, but I' 
do have an impression of light,    {long pause). I think 
that it is possible for me to go much deeper. 

Despite his request and Dr. Clamar's effort to induce a deeper 
trance, nothing resulted. In a few moments. after more periods of 
silence, we ended the session and Philip was brought out of the 
hypnotic state. Immediately afterwards, I brought up the matter of 
the "big eye" that he had seen. I asked about its size - was it like a 
normal eye or was it larger? 

PO: 
Well, I had the impression at one point that it was quite 
huge. 

BH: 
How large? 

PO: 
Well, that was maybe the initial impression - a couple of 
feet. I don’t know. If it was maybe ten feet up in the air. it 

' 

was maybe larger than that. I don't know. 
BH: Yes. But you had a feeling it was above you? In other words, 




rather than on a vertical plane, that it was suspended some


how? 
PO: Yes. 
BH: And it had like a pupil type of thing? We are assuming it 

was not a real eye. 

PO: 
It did, but it would sort of. you know, keep changing. I 
never have just a stationary image, but I get a sort of initial 
quick impression and then it starts degrading into al1 other 
kinds of things. 

BH: 
Do you have the feeling that it was moving or that it was 
stationary? 

PO: 
Well, it's hard to answer what you say because neither in a 
sense. You know, you have the general impression of being 
there and then, and then I see, you know, various different 
kinds of,  I probably saw more than one eye at one particular 
time and then the pupils sort of,  the pupils 
started changing and being different,  

A large, evidently moving and changing eyelike device was 
suspended over him. Charlie Hickson, abducted in Pascagoula, 
Mississippi, in 1973, reported that there had been a large machine 
hanging overhead. "It looked like an eye. Like a big eye. It had 
some kind of an attachment to it. It moved. It looked like a big eye. 
And it went all over my body. Up and down." Betty Andreassen, 
abducted in South Asburnham, Massachusetts, in January, 1967 
described a very similar piece of equipment suspended over her, 
and she later made a drawing of it. This object seems different 
from that which Steven Kilburn described, though its location 
seems the same. As I have pointed out many times, the UFO 
abduction phenomenon breaks down not into just one absolute 
pattern, but rather into several closely related, parallel patterns. 
Hickson, Andreassen, and Philip Osborne and faced a similar eyelike 
apparatus, though, in other respects, Philip's case diverges 
from theirs. This complexity is more or less what one might expect 
if the phenomenon is as advanced as it seems to be, and as relatively 
unfathomable. Imagine two medieval serfs comparing notes 
after having been rushed through differing batteries of tests in a 
modern hospital. I offer the example not so much as an explanation 
of anything, but as a means of keeping our ideological doors 
slightly ajar. 



 

On June 7, 1979, Philip Osborne had his third appointment 
with Dr. Clamar and he concentrated on the Pittsburgh incident. I 
was not present for this hypnotic session, having already moved to 
my Wellfleet studio for the summer, but Ted Bloecher attended. 
This time. as with each of his sessions, a few more details 
emerged. each of which was consistent with what we already 
knew. There were many periods of silence, some of which lasted 
five minutes or so. The transcript which fol1ows has been edited to 
eliminate false starts and irrelevant material. 

PO: 
I can imagine myself lying in the bed, but,    I don't 
know. if I tried, maybe I could just allow myself to recreate 
it. 

AC: 
Why don't you take just a few minutes now to recreate it if 
you wish. or do anything else that you want to. 

PO: 
{After a pause of nearly five minutes} Well, I can just sense 
that I would like to be able to yell out, but I can't, and I see a 
very terrified expression on my face, hut that's just imagined, 
of course. 

AC: 
It might not be imagined, it might be real. 

PO: 
{After a pause of two minutes) And I,    I can see myself 
finally being able to say, 'Help, help, help' and I'm being 
,   ah,  sweating. {Long pause.) 

AC: What's happening in your body, Philip'? 
PO: I'm just sort of drifting into another sort of level of consciousness. 


AC: 
Just let yourself drift into that other level of consciousness 
now. The energy is flowing freely and easily within your 
body and mind. 

(After five minutes, Philip begins breathing more rapidly and 
shows signs of moderate distress. This lasts for about a minute and 
then subsides. lie sighs deeply several times. There follows another silence of ten minutes, broken several times by deep sighs.} 

PO: I can sort of recreate things in my mind up to a certain point, 
but I can't seem to go any further than that. 
AC: That's all right. You don't have to go any further. You can do 
it another time, or not at all. It's really up to you. 
PO: I could just feel myself lying in the bed and,  I have 
that sensation of my jaw locking, and so I would try to move 




it, but I couldn't and,  once the whole thing was over 
with, I could see myself leaving, going down the stairs and 
leaving. And I think,    I'm pretty sure I left by the front 
door, which I don't usually do,  I think I left by the 
front door. which is a big, metal, ornamental iron door, with 
glass, and I think . I really wasn't sure,    first, 
where I went. But the only thing that really comes to mind is 
going,  oh . . to the,  ah,  a short distance

. 

away, there's a roadway that goes up a hill, just a short residential 
drive. and I,  I remember the stone 
wall,    where that roadway goes up, and I see myself 
going to the Heinz mansion. This is directly to the top. 
That's the first turn - off to the left from that roadway, and it 
is perched up on top of the hill, and it is,  nobody live 
there. And I just can't,    I'm not sure, but I just sort of 
sense a commotion going on, not in the house, but outside of 
the house. I don't know, I just can't get a clear image of what 

I,  except that I seem to be very curious. I don't seem to 
be particularly tense any more. 
Very little else emerged. After a long period of silence, Dr. 
Clamar brought Philip out of the trance, but the story had been 
advanced further than before. Philip later told Ted that the commotion 
he saw as he walked up the driveway to the Heinz mansion 
was occurring at the back of the house. It seemed to him to 
involve a number of figures, but he could not make out any details. 
One of the more puzzling recollections from Philip's previous hypnotic 
session was his description of a figure in the window of his 
third - floor room. The basic problem was that the window was 
behind his head and he was, in his paralyzed state, unable to turn 
around. How had he managed to see this strange personage? His 
description of it was quite precise, as if he had observed it close 
up. I questioned him about it after he had been brought out of the 
trance. 

BH: 
You say this face had this fetuslike look? 

PO: 
Yes. First of all, I saw it from more or less of a profile, and it 
was, I guess the face would have been facing the 
right. Yes, either it was sort of turned away or somehow 
or other the features of the face were not apparent to 
me, but the initial impression was this large cranium. you 



 

know, sort of like an embryo,   . and also, I did have the 
impression of blood vessels or something. Like some sort of, 
ah, well, I guess blood vessels or something or other. Some 
sort of a texture. And then as the head revolved around, you 
know. you had the impression of this great forehead with 
these large eyes . Well, no. not exactly like that drawing that Steven did,  the eyes were somewhat simi1ar in 
proportion, but it was more. 
 

BH: 
It was rounder, perhaps? 

PO: Well, (the head in Steven's drawing) was more or less eggshaped 
without so much the sensation of a forehead, but I 
had more or less a feeling of a forehead, and his eyes were 
more or less contained under there. . 
The eyes,    Well, I had the impression of their being 
solid,  but then I think that this feeling of the 
metallic,  that it was almost like a metallic plate, or 
something. Nobody sees that, do they? 

BH: 
No. And that's even though you had the feeling of blood 

vessels? 
PO: Yes. 
BH: Because that seems like kind of a funny mix. 
PO: Well, it is a funny mix. Yes. no question about it. I did not 

get the impression of a grayish skin. If anything, light, but, if 
anything. maybe with some sort of a fleshy or a pink cast, 
not a gray or a gray, gray. 

(He began to describe his feelings at the time.) 

PO: 
At a certain point, there is a transition that seems to take 
place. Sometimes,  it has a much more calming effect. 

BH: 
Yes, I suspect that that is something that actually happens in 
the experience. that there is the frightening aspect and then 
there is a tranquilizing aspect. 

PO: Well, I suspect that that is really what was going through my 
mind, on this judgmental level, I was saying, 'I wonder if I 
have been tranquilized or something.' Now that was almost 
as if I was experiencing that that suddenly I felt much,   
more calm. And then usually I drift from that state, I drift 
away from the thing altogether, and, you know, I start thinking 
about something else, and it just becomes unimportant. 





BH: You said that it was as if you were getting a sense of being 
told 'Everything is going to be all right,' or something like 
that. 
PO: Oh, yes. I heard that everything will be all right. 

(The conversation ended with Philip's characteristically careful 
disclaimer. I 

PO: 
I was just trying this time to tell you whatever just sort of 
popped into my mind. It was very much just kind of a 
collage of impressions There was not any kind of sequential thing,   
 There was not any involvement. really, 
or the feeling that I was reliving anything,  rather, 
that I was acting as an observer. 

This statement has, I believe, a specific importance, which I 
will come to in a moment. Meanwhile, the first thing to be considered 
is the figure as Philip described it. He was careful to distinguish 
the shape of his head from a shape he had seen on the NBC 
documentary, drawn from Steven Kilburn's recollection. The 
large cranium with the eyes tucked underneath recalled drawings 
of humanoids reported in the Travis Walton and Sergeant 
Moody" cases. The main similarity to the 
face in Steven's drawing, he felt, lay in the proportionate size of 
the eyes and the size of the head. His description of metallic eyes 
on apparently semitransparent skin which showed the blood vessels underneath, was indeed. as he said. a funny mix and one that 

I had never precisely heard of before. 

Now we come to the crucial question - how did he see all this 
while lying paralyzed in bed, facing away from the window? The 
answer is clear from a close reading of the transcripts. As Dr. Ciamar 
asks him to describe the little third - floor room, he says, "I see 
a face in the window., I was just very curious about 
that,    presence at the window." As the episode comes to light, 
he continues. "At the time, I was only aware of a sort of silhouette 
, and just now, I really did become more aware of a 
figure,   It did change. (Emphasis mine.] I believe that Philip, 
in his scrupulous manner, is trying to differentiate between a 
vague image, "a sort of silhouette," that he recalls in connection 
with the window and the fuller image of a humanoid. which 
seems to be tied up with later events. This more complete figure, 



 

which had a specific "fleshy or pink caste. not a gray or graygray 
skin," apparently was seen close up and in decent light, so 
one can assume that it was encountered after the incident in the 
bedroom, and in another place. In fact, when I asked Philip if this 
more detailed figure was inside the window glass or outside, he 
answered this way: "It was neither. It was just associated with the 
glass, with this window,  I was not seeing this from the viewpoint 
that I was in at the time. I was seeing it from the viewpoint of 
the here and now, it standing there and looking at me." One is left 
with the unmistakable sense that Philip is recalling two different 
times that he saw the humanoid, and so his final remark takes on 
special meaning. "I was just trying,    to tell you whatever just 
sort of popped in my mind,   . There was not any kind of sequential 
thing,   . " His description of the events of that long ago 
night in Pittsburgh was, in his words, very much a "collage of 
impressions." Images were recovered, but not in any precise 
order. 

When one puts together the narrative sequence it closely resembles 
Howard Rich's experience. First, Philip awakes in his 
room, absolutely paralyzed, and sensing a presence, a vague silhouette 
behind him. A strange light fills the room. He gets up, 
dresses, and goes outside, up the hill to the grounds of the deserted 
Heinz mansion. There, he finds himself drawn toward a group of, 
figures standing behind the building, and the abduction is consummated. 
His abductors have large, bulging craniums, and 
metallic - looking eyes. More was to be revealed in his fourth hypnotic 
session, and much of what we already knew was to be confirmed. 


For a number of reasons. there was a delay of almost a year 
between his third and fourth hypnotic sessions. The ebbing and 
flowing of Philip's hypnotic recall was a frustrating problem that 
bothered him more than it did Ted and me. We were also busy 
with our own work. and with a number of other UFO cases, but 
when the investigation did resume, we were very pleased by the 
results. As I pointed out in the Steven Kilburn case, long pauses 
between hypnotic regressions have one distinct advantage, and 
that is the sense one has of consistently recalled events. Fantasies 
can wander promiscuously from month to month. and deliberate 
inventions are hard to keep straight. If, ten months later, a hypnotically 
recalled narrative confirms in both outline and specific 
detail what was recalled ten months previously, then we are probably 
dealing with an actual, historical event. 




On April 12, 1980, Philip, Ted, and I gathered in Dr. Clamar's 
office to resume our inquiry. Again, the transcript which follows 
has been edited somewhat to eliminate much of what one could 
designate the Philip Osborne system of backing and filling, claiming 
and disclaiming. 

AC: Your memory goes back to that night in col1ege, that night 
we have been talking about. {Hypnosis is induced.) 
PO: (After u long pause) My dominant impression is of some sort 
of a presence at the window. That's what all of my attention 
is focused towards and it's as if there's a black, ah. blot or 
something that's obscuring whatever may be there from my 
vision,   . 
The thing that is strange is that my impression of the 
room is it's very bright, and, ah, there is light although I 
know that is not the case. It was not a bright room, and, ah, l 
don't recall any brightness at all, but that's the image that 
my mind is creating now. (Pause) I do feel like there is 
something there to be seen, not necessarily in this room, 
but. you know. something that I'm linking to it,  

AC: 
If you were to see in that window. what do you imagine 
would be there? 

PO: Well, it isn't just now that it's in front of the window, but it's 
sort of in the middle of my field of vision and that's what I 
am trying to, ah. lift. but it does not happen. Ah, as to what I 
would imagine to be there, the only thing that I notice is that 
I sense a kind of presence there. (Long pause.) 
I can imagine myself in another environment, almost, 
as if I am in another place or another enclosure, and it isn't 
so much being able to see it. as just sensing it. (Long pause.] 
And I do have a sort of a sense of reclining and of being 
kind of enveloped in a sort of. hazy, kind of state. For some 
reason. it seems as if I'm sort of aware of two small balls or 
spheres that are illuminated from within. Ah, they're sort of 
either, on either side of my head, or I'm not sure that they 
stay there in that position, but there is a feeling almost as if I 
am encased in a kind of dome, but it has that impression. 
(Long pause.) There's confusion concerning those things 
that I am describing as balls. Ah, I can almost have the 
impression that they are eyes,    ah, but there definitely 
is a state of calmness associated with this image. It is as if 
one suddenly makes that transition - and I do recall that 



AC: 

PO: 

 

from earlier sessions here - that there is a definite transition 
where all of a sudden calmness seems to prevail {pause). I 
almost have the sensation that I could be floating in a reclining 
position, or at least not aware of whatever may be 
supporting me, but there is just a kind of energy field surrounding 
me, or a kind of hazy kind of quality. I could imagine 
that there is some presence there. It's almost as if, 
you know, I can sense that someone is around, but I do not 
see anybody. {Long pause.) 

I have the sense of something uncanny, and, ah, you 
know, like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. but then 
I did go back to that, ah, sense of paralysis. The strange 
thing is that my attention is drawn to a telephone at the 
head of the bed, and I do recall at that time I had the sensation 
that I should reach for the telephone and call for 
help, but there wasn't any telephone there. I don't know 
why I would think of a telephone. There was no telephone 
there. That was one thing that was very illogical. 
Could you describe this "Wizard of Oz" figure? 
It was,    the Wizard of Oz character. It wasn't 
, I'm sure it wasn't anything that I saw. It was just an 
association. 

I'm trying to imagine leaving the house and, for some 
reason, I see myself leaving by the front door, which I don't 
think I would have normally done,   . I'm just trying to 
imagine what possible way I did go when I left the house. 
For some reason. I do just feel drawn to that spot, the 
{Heinz) house. I see kind of an aerial map and all of the 
lines are pointing in that direction,   . It, ah. it's as if I'm 
sort of tracing through it without so much experiencing it, 
but I can imagine myself going up a driveway which is relatively 
close to the house and, ah, there's almost an arrow 
that points over to the, to my left, which would be on the 
opposite end of the house, and. ah, almost a kind of a sense 
of inquisitiveness on my part - not a fear or anything. And I 
think that, at another time, I have said that I sensed a sort of 
activity there. Now, it isn't so much as if there is an activity. 
but it's almost as if there are people standing there, almost 
in a line. I don't see them precisely as people, but you just 
have the impression of figures. and, ah, there's nothing 
more to see there. It's all very dark. It's more of an impression. 
{Long pause.} 



I hesitate to say it. but (I have) almost a sense of a flying 
saucer there and I'm just trying to imagine what might have 
happened next. I Long pause.) I don't see any light around at 
all. Of course, it may have been, I mean, whatever might 
have been there, there may have been a starlit sky, a moonlit 
sky, with the lights from the surrounding houses reflected 
in the sky, but there isn't any light there. and I do recall 
before that there was a sense of activity or something. 
Someone moving around and doing something in the darkness. 
but I don't know exactly how that connects with the 
impression now. 

After another long pause, Dr. Clamar brought Philip out of the 
trance. Ted and I began to question him both about the new 
details he had recalled and his calmer behaviour in the hypnotic 
state. I commented upon the fact that he had not seemed so nervous 
this time. and he agreed. saying that he had definitely felt 
more detached. 

BH: Now, you said, the two spheres that seemed to be illuminated 
appeared to be small. You said they were on either 
side of you. close to the face. 
PO: Yes. And then I sort of have the feeling that, well. you 
know. you have these kind of dreamlike impressions that 
are very difficult to describe, of course, that they could have 
moved above me. As I say, I could almost sense that they 
were eyes at some point, but initially, I mean, in dreams 
sometimes one thing can sometimes transpose itself into 
something else, and these are just the kinds of impressions 
that I have. 
BH: The big eye. you see, we've talked about before. The big 
eye - you saw the single eye. Close to you. 
PO: Yes. Well, I wasn't aware - 1 frankly don't remember what I 
said about that, but I wasn't aware of a single eye close to 
me. 
Bh: Yes. That was more an earlier experience anyway. 
PO: Yes. 
BH: Associating that with the Tennessee experience .. 
TB: Philip, on the association of place with these two spheres, 
do you get the sense of being in your room at Carnegie 
Tech? 
PO: No, no, no. This was where I had sort of been displaced to. Gone beyond that into another,  
BH: Another area. Enclosure. I think you used the word "enclosure." 

PO: 
Yes. I had the sense that. you know, there was a kind of 
space all around me and that I was more or less in the mid· 
die of it. 

BH: 
One other thing that you mentioned now that I don't recall 
your having mentioned before {This is an incorrect memory - 
BHl was a brightness in your room. You didn't think 
this was ordinary to the room. 

PO: 
No. And I don't recall it, either. That's one I certainly - you 
know, I don't recall it from anything. I don't know why that 
suddenly presented itself. But I had somewhat the feeling 
that maybe that was something 1 was inventing to counteract 
the unpleasantness of that occasion. You know, suddenly 
l was feeling the room as bright and a more cheerful 
kind of place. 

BH: 
You said this thing about feeling very relaxed and calm, and 
that there was a transition where you passed something that 
had not been very calm, and went into a calm state. You did 
mention that actually at an earlier session, too. 

PO: 
Yes, and I recall that. You know, there are certain things 
when you are coming to, that you suddenly do remember, 
something that you had experienced previously. 

We adjourned shortly thereafter to a delicatessen for more 
conversation and a bit of lunch. In response to a question, Phi1ip 
elaborated on one of the details he had obliquely, and rather unclearly, 
mentioned when he was in the trance state, and this was 
the matter of the "hazy kind of state." He said that around the 
table on which he lay - or floated - the atmosphere itself seemed 
hazy, or "glarey," as if the air was not absolutely transparent. Immediately, 
I remembered Steven's words: "I almost want to say 
that the air in the room is white also,  . Everything is kind of 
milky or misty or something. It doesn't shine, but everything has 
almost that metallic kind of glow to it . including me." Virginia 
Horton, the reader will recall, described the color of the light as 
being pale gray, or a real soft gray,    pearly, those kinds 
of colors." When I see the adjective "pearly," I picture not so 
much a specific hue as a particular kind of delicate reflectiveness 
in which the light in front of an object appears to be intangibly 




colored. I do not want to force my definition upon the reader, but 
my guess is that Virginia is using a different metaphor for the same 
conditions that Steven and Philip are describing. In the preceding 
chapter. I gave other examples from the case literature of this kind 
of observation. A recently published book, The Tujunga Canyon 
Contacts,5 includes an interesting double confirmation. A young 
female abductee who is called Lorie in the book describes the light 
inside the UFO as being "misty." But she also describes small, 
round lights like Philip's glowing spheres which moved over her 
body. "I felt like being on an operating table and being inspected 
,   . Those lights going over me,    (were) like scanner 
lights. I was being inspected in a relatively painless 
manner by some sort of light. It wasn't threatening to me." Philip 
had been quick to explain that the large eye he had earlier described 
was not connected with the Pittsburgh encounter. This 
time, the scanning - if that is what the function is - was carried out 
by the small moving spheres of light. The mechanical man for 
which he invoked the calming and charming image of the Tin 
Man in The Wizard of Oz is a full - scale version of what in earlier 
sessions had been merely an armored hand. He described the 
benign (and. sadly, heart - less) film character not as "anything that 
I saw. It was just an association." Jack Haley standing in, as it 
were. for something that in actuality was probably far more unsettling; 
again, the unconscious mind seems to be avoiding, or at 
least softening, the clear, fearful edges of remembered reality. 

Putting together all of Philip's basic images and superimposing 
them upon the narrative as it presented itself, this is what we 
can safely surmise: In 1950, at the age of seven, or possibly the 
following summer, Philip and his family travelled back up the Tennessee 
mountaintop after dark to retrieve his brother's lost jacket. 
In some as - yet - unknown fashion, Philip was apparently separated 
from his family and pulled swiftly into a UFO resembling a 
geodesic dome, which hovered in a deserted parking lot. (His 
physical capture and abduction without abductors is similar in its 
degree of vagueness to Virginia Horton's.) Inside the UFO. as 
Philip lay on a table in a hospital - like environment. a "robot arm" 
made an incision, removed something from his leg. and then 
closed the wound. Above him hung a large eyelike apparatus 
which at first frightened him, but then calmed him. The method of 
his return to his family in their automobile is as yet unclear. 

About thirteen or fourteen years later - it was probably 



 

1964 - Philip awoke in his third - floor room near Pittsburgh's Carnegie 
Tech to find himself totally paralyzed. He sensed a presence, 
a silhouette, at the window behind his head. Light suffused 
the room. In moments, the paralysis left him. He dressed and went 
outside. Following mental directions, like a "roadmap in his 
mind," he ascended the hill behind his house to the grounds of the 
deserted Heinz mansion. Feeling inquisitive and without fear, he 
approached a line of figures standing behind the house. Nearby, 
there was a "flying saucer" and, in some way, he next found himself 
reclining inside a domed room filled with hazy light. Two 
small glowing balls or spheres hovered on either side of his head, 
which again calmed him. Two types of figures are associated with 
this experience: a pinkish, flesh - colored humanoid with "metallic 
eyes" and translucent skin, and a metallic, very shiny, robotlike 
figure with jointed, armored hands. Exactly what else happened, 
how Philip returned to his room, is still unclear. 

A particularly striking indication of the accuracy and tenacity 
of Philip's hypnotic recall came to light through an innocent error 
of Ted Bloecher's. Immediately after the fourth hypnotic session 
in April of 1980, Ted mentioned that the line of figures Philip 
reported in front of the Heinz mansion was seen this time in general 
darkness; ten months earlier, Ted thought, Philip had described 
them moving in front of a bright light. Philip immediately 
disagreed. "I don't think I said that. I guess I may have because I 
never remember everything I have said before, but I really don't 
think I ever saw them against any bright light." We checked a 
transcript of that June 1979 session and Philip was right - he had 
never reported seeing the figures against light. It was a simple 
mis, recollection of Ted's, but it offered a test both of Philip's suggestibility 
and the tenacity of his remembered imagery. We were 
all pleased that the error had occurred. 

The spectrum of human response to the abduction experience 
is indeed a wide one, yet the varieties of human behaviour and 
recall under hypnotic regression are vastly larger. The transcripts 
I have presented vividly illustrate these problems. But it is my 
belief that what we have here is not a wide, irregular collection of 
various UFO abduction accounts, each equipped with its own degree 
of credibility. Instead, we are seeing a wide variety of human 
response to the same basic, unearthly experience. And later, to the 
still different and unsettling act of recalling this experience 
through hypnosis. The abductees vary more than the abduction 



process itself. Philip Osborne's and Virginia Horton's accounts 
show this perhaps more clearly than any other pair of cases I have 
studied. In neither instance, we must remember, was there any 
prior conscious memory of a UFO sighting or anything else that 
would indicate a possible abduction. 

By the middle of May 1979, we had uncovered many of the 
aforementioned details of Philip's second - his Pittsburgh - abduction, 
but by a fortuitous coincidence, I was able, a few months 
later, to visit the site where we believed it had happened. 

In September of 1979, I received an invitation to lecture at the 
Carnegie Institute's Museum of Art on the occasion of Willem de 
Kooning's retrospective exhibition. In a nicely unorthodox decision, 
the museum staff had decided to ask a painter who had 
known and admired de Kooning and his work for many years, 
rather than an art historian - a colleague rather than a critic. 
Philip gave me the location of the house he had lived in, and when 
I arrived in Pittsburgh on December 10, a sculptor acquaintance of 
mine drove me to the spot. After my lecture later that night, I revisited 
the area to try to judge its plausibility as a UFO landing 
site. 

The Heinz mansion is the largest of several houses and outbuildings 
spread over perhaps fifteen acres. It is occupied today 
by a religious order, and by eleven - thirty in the evening, everything 
was quite dark. Knowing what I knew from Philip's account, 
the place took on an eerie, slumbering quality as I walked across the 
silent lawn. A few lights from some neighboring houses and the 
distant sounds of traffic coming from down below barely touched 
the dark, isolated calm. The hilltop was flat except for a large, 
roughly ten foot deep, bowl - like depression, the remains, I 
guessed, of a pond which must have been drained many years 
before. 

Everything about the place reinforced its plausibility as the 
location of a UFO landing site. Everything about its desolate mood 
underlined the idea that Philip, after the fright he'd experienced 
in his room, would only have walked up this hill if he had had 
absolutely no choice in the matter.

 

Chapter 8,
THE ALSATIAN DEER. 

At the time of Virginia Horton's first hypnotic session, 
Aphrodite Clamar made a telling observation. She pointed out 
that, when a young child receives a deep gash which bleeds copiously, 
the event invariably becomes part of the family oral history. 
the "day Suzie slipped on the rock and cut her leg open and it 
bled so badly." For example, I have a small scar on my scalp 
where I was hit by a sharp tin can. The accident happened around 
1937. My older brother and his friends were playing kick - the - can. 
and Jimmy Gilliland's foot sent the can hard against me. Fortythree 
years later, the details are still vivid to my mother and my 
brother. Evidently I bled dramatically. and another childhood accident 
entered the family chronicles. 

It is against everything we would normally expect that, 
though Virginia's parents remember their daughter's deep childhood 
wound, they have no idea at all of its origin. And in 1979, 
when Philip Osborne first asked his mother about the source of his 
scar. she could not remember anything about it, either. A few 
weeks later, she told him that she thought she remembered something 
about his falling off a tricycle and cutting himself, but she 
wasn't sure. I called her in May of 1979, and this time she said she 
thought he had cut himself on the sharp edge of a toy. I asked if 
she remembered actually witnessing the accident or if she recalled 
what kind of a toy it had been and she answered no to both 
questions. Though her recollections were admittedly - and 
strangely - vague. she was certain of one thing: the accident had 
happened in the evening when there was no way to get Philip to a 
doctor. His wound, she said, was treated at home. 



Under hypnosis, Philip described the environment where the 
incision was made as being "hospital - like" with a stretcherlike 
table. His mother's statement that he definitely had not been taken 
to a doctor's office or to a hospital's emergency room is therefore 
significant. It eliminates the possibility that Philip could be confusing 
his incision's "white environment" with a real hospital 
since he had not been taken to one in the first place. 

Nothing is more vivid than blood. A childhood accident 
which causes a wound deep enough to leave a noticeable scar 
thirty years later should have become a dramatic event in family 
history. The details of this kind of traumatic episode should have 
become deeply etched in parental memory, yet neither Philip's 
nor Virginia's mother seems to recall very much at all about what 
happened to her child. Beyond recollecting that the accidents happened 
when their children were very young, everything is hazy. 

If the causes of their wounds were as Virginia and Philip 
recall them through hypnosis - incisions made by remote - control, 
robotlike machinery inside a UFO - then everything falls into 
place. The parents remember very little for two and possibly three 
reasons. First. none of the parents actually witnessed their child's 
accident. so they could have no idea, first - hand, of its cause. Second, 
neither child had any conscious memory of how the injuries 
occurred, either, and so neither was able to explain anything at all 
to the parents. There were no details to remember, except the fact 
of the wound itself. And third, there is very possibly a degree of 
control by the UFO occupants of the parents' memories as well as 
those of the children. As we have seen in the David Oldham case, 
for example, and as I have noticed in numerous other cases, the 
particular person or persons who were abducted are not the only 
people involved whose recollections have been tampered with. 
One should expect, with such distinct scars as those Virginia and 
Philip bear ("The only mark on my body," Virginia said), that the 
parents definitely should remember more about these "accidents 
than they do,    unless, of course, more than a mere dollop of 
forgetfulness was stirred in from the outside. 

When Virginia first called her mother in 1979 to ask about the 
original 1950 farmyard incident, her mother was slow to remember - 
but she was quick to recall the time Virginia emerged from 
the French woods and discovered blood on her blouse. Virginia, 
herself, had almost forgotten this second episode, but a moment's 
reflection offers a possible reason for their varying degrees of recollection. 
The difference is caused by the movie Virginia's father 
took of the picnic. Virginia's mother had seen the film a number of 
times, so the image of her daughter's blood bespattered blouse 
would have burned into her memory. Virginia told me that she, 
herself, hated the movie because of the stains - again, the unnerving vividness of blood. The physical reality of the film image was 
something she actively tried to put out of her mind. It was unpleasantly graphic, and it had, after all, happened to her. For her mother, 
however, the film record of the 1960 incident may have successfully 
counteracted the memory control exerted that time by 
Virginia's abductors. Obviously, this is speculation, but it does 
present a plausible explanation of what seem to be arbitrary differences in the two women's degree of recall. 

Virginia and I met ten weeks after her first session for her 
second hypnotic session. Our main goal was to explore her 1960 
experience in France, but there were also a number of loose ends 
left dangling from the 1957 abduction recall. Central was the issue 
of how she got inside the UFO in the first place. We talked about 
this problem before hypnosis began, and Virginia said she had a 
vague sense of having been physically picked up and carried by 
someone, though the details were unclear. 

"It was just as though somebody was carrying me over to the 
couch and setting me down. I don't think I was picked up by a 
machine,  or by a vacuum,  nothing like that. It was like a 
humanoid type person picking me up and carrying me. I haven't 
had any vivid memories about it." 

I brought the conversation around to the subject at hand. 

BH: 
That incident in France at the picnic. Have you thought 
much about it? 

Well, I just thought about it, but nothing came back to me, 
except to remember again the sense of wonder that I had at 
the time at the beautiful, beautiful deer that I saw. You 
know, it was as though I had walked out of the woods and 
claimed that I saw a unicorn. There was that sense of excitement and wonder. And when I think about the visual 
memories that I had, there wasn't anything unusual about 
the deer, except that it was looking at me,  and it was 
looking at me in a very conscious kind of way, but it could 
just as easily have been that I was hypnotized and thought I 
saw a deer to make it easy to have a story to tell. 

AC: 
Yes, it could have been suggested. 




BH: 
You mentioned that to me, in fact, the very first time we 
talked about it. 

VH: 
Yes. right. 

BH: 
As a matter of fact, you said something to the effect that. the 
more you talked a bout the deer to your parents, the less you 
were sure you had even seen a deer. You said it was 
like,  like you were high on the idea of having seen the 
deer and yet you weren't sure how real it was. 

VH: 
No, it was a very real experience, but I was just speculating 
to you that maybe it wasn't a real deer. Maybe it was something 
else I was suggested to remember as a deer. I 
don't have any doubts that I saw something that moved me. 
Something real. It wasn't a product of my imagination. It 
may have had a hypnotic cover, but it looked like a deer to 
my memory,   . 

(Dr. Clamor begins the induction of hypnosis and tokes Virginia 
back to the age of six in her grandfather's farmyard.) 

VH: I'm just looking around the yard, remembering the way it 
was. I was a lot more connected to the grounds then than I 
am now. I used to notice, you know, how the dirt was different 
on rainy days than on dry days, and how the plants 
changed every day. The dandelions turned fluffy, you 
know, when they make their seeds. This was something that 
I was connected to every day which I'm not anymore 
, to the animals and to the yard. 
AC: Would you like to re - experience that connectedness? 

VH: 
Yes. I would. 

AC: At the count of three, you will find yourself reliving and 
re - experiencing and revivifying the connectedness that you 
felt. The earth, your environment, and yourself,  one, two,  three. 

 (Long pause) Rocks, too. Every day I would go out to play 
and I would talk to the plants and the animals in the yard 
and the chickens and all these things. I think that's one of 
the things I told my friend on the ship. I told him about the 
different kinds of animals. I guess that's how we got to talking 
about chickens. I think from that, that's when he suggested 
that I go gather the eggs and bring them in. I don't 
think my mother had told me to gather the eggs. I think 


 

when I explained to him about it, he just told me to go do 
that. just to go about my business. 

He probably knew that I had a cut and that would be a 
good way to cover it. But I think I told him a lot about animals 
and plants, 'cause he was interested in that, what they 
look like and what they feel like, how they live and eat. 
How big they are. 

AC: 
Did you draw any pictures for your friend? 

VH: 
I think I described them verbally, but he could understand 
them. He might have had pictures that he showed me and I 
would say, 'Yes, they look like that. No, they don't look like 
that.' And I would describe them texturely, too. What they 
felt like, what their fur felt like or their feathers or the 
leaves or whatever. I don't think I drew. I think I just 
described them. How many legs they had, you know. What 
kind of mouths they had. What kind of ears. what kind of 
eyes. 1 told him about lizards. There were lizards that lived 
down in the barn that were kind of cute and I told him 
about those. 

AC: 
What was your friend like? 

VH: 
Curious. And a good listener. Had a sense of humor. And 
very patient. And very old and mature. 1 mentioned last 
time that when I asked how old he was he just said, 'Very 
old.' which reminds me of my grandfather, but I had the 
sense that he didn't think I could understand how old he 
was. 

AG: 
How ta11 was he? 

VII: Ah, I think he was about as tall as my uncle. A little bit 
shorter. My uncle is short, probably five - feet - five - inches or 
 - six - inches. He was probably somewhere between five feet 
and five - feet - five - inches. And I think he was taller than the 
others, but only by an inch or two. Maybe a little bit more. 
The perspective of the kid,  the person who carried 
me was shorter than an adult. Sort of the size of a big 
kid. 
And I think the impression that I have that I told you 
about the last time, about what the skin was like and stuff, I 
think now that that was the clothing they wore. I think they 
wore something to cover their skin, which I thought was 
them, but was really what they were wearing, like a soft, 
supple gray, almost suedelike space suits, to cover them. 




Not like the ones we wear - ones that were as smooth and 
close - fitting as their skin. And that I thought was them, but 
it wasn't. It was what they wore outside to protect themselves. 
Skin - fitting, and it was fairly thick but very soft and 
the texture of really fine leather, you know, like nice 
French leather shoes, really soft leather. Not suede, but soft 
kid. Gray and ah,  body temperature was not different 
than mine. Well, maybe it was different, but not so much 
that I felt cold or hot. You know, like you were touching a 
cold - blooded animal,    of course, it was a warm day and 
it may have adjusted to our temperature but it felt like 
something that wasn't cold,    . 

And, ah, the head was simplified, as though the thing 
he wore over his face didn't have very many openings. I 
guess it had, I think, two eyes, but I think what I thought was 
like big eyes were probably just like glass surfaces or bubble 
surfaces to protect the eyes. I didn't think I saw them 
without their costumes on or what they really looked like. I 
think they just had little protective bubbles that let them see 
peripherally, but screened out the excess radiation or whatever 
they didn't want. And they were dark and I thought 
they had big, dark eyes, but I don't know that that's true. I 
think it was that it reflected a lot of sun. It seems to me our 
light was very bright for them, but on the other hand, inside 
their spaceship was very bright. So maybe it was just a different 
spectrum. 

The person that talked to me later from remote was the 
one I assumed carried me. but it might not have been. The 
one that carried me was the taller one. I don't remember 
, I think there were three people in all, but I'm not 
sure. Maybe two of them were outside. I think that's what it 
was. Two of them were outside and I think I saw them 
when I got carried in, but I think they wanted to take off 
their costumes, so they went into a different part of the ship 
that they could talk to me from behind the wall. I do think I 
saw them before they did that.,    Explain that to me. 
Ummm,    there was so much gray and their costumes 
were gray. But either they are gray or it has something to do 
with their spectrum. Maybe they're not color - sensitive, or,  urn,  it seemed like the gray had a 
meaning to it, but either that was the color of the skin or it 
was a soothing color to their eyes, or something. The gray 
wasn't an accident or just somebody's color judgment. 

This is Virginia's first extensive description of the figures who 
carried her aboard the UFO. The details of their sma11 size and 
gray color closely echo the other descriptions we have heard, but 
one of her observations stands out as particularly subtle - she felt 
that her abductors' outer layer was not skin, but instead was some 
kind of gray, skin - like fabric. It was "as smooth and close - fitting as 
their skin,  it was fairly thick but very soft, and the texture of 
really fine leather." Sergeant Charles Moody1; the reader will recall, 
said also that his captor's skin was whitish - gray and the face 
was "almost like a mask." (Emphasis mine.) 

Even more to the point, Steven Kilburn described what one of 
his abductors looked like from behind: "I see the back of his head 
now,  it's perfectly round. Ugly little thing. And I think there's 
a line. I don't know if that's skin on his head. A very, very faint 
line like a ripple,    like a seam. Right down the middle. I can't 
tell if it's skin or something he has over head. It fits well, 
though." 

The correspondences between Virginia's description of her 
captors' eyes and the other accounts are equally subtle. She said 
that their dark eyes were "probably just like glass surfaces, or bubble 
surfaces to protect the eyes,  I thought they had big, dark 
eyes but I don't think that's true." Steven described the way the 
eyes of his captor shone in the light from the landed UFO: "I see 
the reflection,  there's something really shiny coming off this 
character's eyes. It's almost like they're black and endless . " 
Philip Osborne referred to his captor's eyes this way: "I had the 
impression of their being solid,    that it was almost a metallic 
plate or something." 

As Virginia's narrative resumes, she begins to speculate about 
her abductor's status and role. Even within the hypnotic trance. 
she is conscious that her impressions are intuitive guesses. 

V: 
The feeling that I have about it was that this person was 
someone senior enough in his own society to have quasiofficial 
status,   . It would almost be like a retired emeritus 
professor who was doing research that he liked for his 
own interest,  that he'd gotten someone to sponsor, so it 
was on an official basis. But it was almost like I was in a 
private yacht or a,  it was definitely not like a military 
vehicle or a, ah, like our space shuttle. It had a private quality 
about it that was very much his stamp rather than kind of 
an official government or an official diplomatic something. It was like he was indulging his personal interests 
and they were also being indulged for him by the society, 
and this is more the feeling that I have now when I try to 
think back about how I felt. rather than necessarily something 
that I was aware of then. 

The things that he explained were like, 'This is a very 
interesting thing that I do,' the way you'd explain your motivation 
to do basic research to a child. 

AC: What did you cal1 him? Were you able to name him? 
VH: What did I call him? Urn, it seems like he used "I" and "we" 
but, urn, names,  what did he call himself? I'll think 
about that. I don't remember. I think it was just . 

"you." 
AC: How did you get his attention if you wanted to ask him 
something or say something? 

VH: 
Oh, the feeling that I had was that they were listening with 
bated breath to every word that I said and every thought 
that I thought. You know, the communication process was 
completely absorbing them, so I didn't need to get their attention. 
I had it constantly. 

AC: 
Was there anything else about this experience that you 
would like to tell me about? 

VH: 
I'll think about it. It seems like there is. I think he asked how 
long we lived. I'm thinking more about the tone of the question 
that he asked me, the things he asked me 
about.,    He asked how long we lived and how long 
these different animals lived. And I told him that they 
had,  how many offspring the chickens have, and I explained 
about eggs versus having your own babies, and how 
many people have, and how many different kinds of animals 
do, and I think I also explained to him about warmblooded 
and cold - blooded animals. which I knew 
about,  and I think I explained about nursing and how 
long animals live and plants, too. He was interested in 
plants,  and, ah, I think he asked me what plants eat 
and I told him they didn't eat anything, that they just lived in 
the air. And I think I explained to him about the seasons, 
and he asked about weather, too, and I don't think I knew 
very much about weather. I mean, I explained how it got 



 

cold and froze things, but I don' t think I had very much 
sophisticated information about weather to tell him about the seasons and how hot it got in the summer 
and how cold it got in the winter. I told him it got cold 
enough in the winter that you could pour a glass of water 
out into the snow and it would freeze by the time it hit the 
ground. So I guess he could have figured out from that how 
cold it was. 

AC: 
Did he show you anything in return for all this information 
you gave him? Did he share anything with you? 

VI: 
He told me a lot. He explained a lot. I guess, when we 
talked about animals, he told me about different kinds of 
animals and different places. They are very different in different places. 
AC: 
Did he describe them to you? 

VH: 
I think that when he asked me about animals and I said, 
' Well, you know how animals are,' and he'd say, 'No,' and 
he'd explain to me patiently that they're not a certain way 
everywhere and that was why he was asking, because 
they're different in different places. I think he showed me 
something like slides as though, you know, like windows, so 
that there were different pictures that would,  mostly 
they were pictures of star maps, you know. they would say, 
'This is the star.' I don't think I was able to follow 
exactly where things were in relationship. But I remember 
later on I started to look up at the stars. It was just at that 
time that I began to look up the stars and try to get a sense of 
distances and relationships,    So he'd explain them to 
me, but I didn’t really understand. I think most of the pictures 
he was trying to show me were where he came from 
and where he visited and where we were with relationship 
to that and, urn, I don't know,  I'll toy with that and 
maybe I can remember it, but maybe if I had studied astronomy it would have been familiar, but I haven't studied astronomy. I've always avoided astronomy because I knew 
that our astronomy doesn’t reach far enough to where things 
are for it to be,    somehow, I guess he's from a long ways 
away or I wouldn't have this very distinct impression that 
I'm not going to find it in our astronomy. And yet he was 
trying to relate to me . He did te1l me about the Milky 
Way, you know. and tried to make a picture of how they 
were with relationship to our Milky Way, and I think that 


he was. like, from a different Milky Way, which means that 
he must have been from a very, very, very long way away 
because that's a whole galaxy. So we were dealing in distances 
of galaxies, not just stars. 

AC: Did his maps look like the maps that we have now? 

VH: They did look like star maps, yes, they looked like pictures 
of stars at night. They looked like slides of the heavens that 
you might show to somebody, but they had colors. I think 
they were color - coded for different kinds of stars,  they 
had green, and mostly white and blue. Quite a bit of blue, 
and some red and orange. Yellow. The green was unusual. 
Mostly white and blue. Some orangey - red ones. 
What else did he show me that I might remember? I 
think he showed me so much that I can't,  that I 
couldn't. There are places that have these kinds of 
animals and there were a whole lot of slides of things that 
would remind us of dinosaurs and then slides of other kinds 
of animals. There are a lot of different winged animals and 
different places. So I guess he was especially interested in 
the chickens because they are warm and have feathers, 
which is unusual. Birds were very interesting to him. There 
were all kinds of winged creatures and some of them were 
quite large. They must have different kinds of atmospheres. 
They're almost like,    they almost look like fish. Big 
round kinds of like blowfish or something that go through 
the air. They must live in a very dense atmosphere. And, 
urn, I guess snakes. too. Those weren't so common. I don't, 
oh, there were soft fuzzies, too. There were soft fuzzies like 
rodents, bunnies. Large ones. And he did say, too. that they 
were all different sizes. 
Most of the pictures he showed me were plants and 
animals. A lot of different flowers of different kinds 
. almost like underwater creatures. You know how different 
they look. It seemed like he was showing me pictures 
of all the different kinds of things there are. 
There were so many I couldn't soak them all up. I 
don't. 
I have to think if any of them really stick out to 
me. I think the creature that went through the air that was 
like a blowfish captivated my imagination. And some of the 
flowers because they were so exotic and beautiful. And 
fish. I remembered when I studied biology and looked at 
exotic fish, I had that same feeling. I think I saw a lot of 



 

exotic fish, but there were so many. It's as though he 
showed me a matter of hundreds, but I don't remember any 
of them very vividly. Such diversity. He kept talking about 
diversity, which was something that he was very interested 
in. Diversity. About how important biological diversity is. 

It's very interesting that he said that over and over 
again. I think that was a message for me when I grew up, 
because preserving diversity is the reason that we protect 
the endangered species, so it was like a reassuring message 
from him, that he, like, he would be a scientist, and from a 
scientist's point of view, they cherished the diversity and 
therefore they would protect it from any kind of urn, ecological disturbance. Like from any other kind of species 
coming in. There was a sense of a protective quality about 
that, like if somebody else wanted to come here and colonize, 
they would protect us from having our life - forms threatened 
because they cherish biological diversity. 

He talked about it with a tone of voice that it was 
obviously something that he was not only interested in. but 
something he really cherished. You know, a very deep kind 
of a sense of wonder, and respect about it. Almost a religious 
quality, too. 

AC: 
Do you have a feeling that he's still around? 

VH: 
That he's still alive? Yes. I have the feeling that, if he 
wanted to come visit me, he certainly could. Yes. I have the 
feeling that he's old and that they live a long time and that 
therefore he's unlikely to be very much different from what 
he was then. 

AC: 
Do you feel that there is some way that you could get in 
touch with him? 

VH: That idea has been crossing my mind lately that I would just 
try. I would just assume that I could, and go about it as 
though I was just thinking about someone. like you do when 
you want somebody to call you. And I thought I would work 
on that, maybe. the interesting thing is, you know, the 
speed at which you travel. I definitely have the feeling that 
they could travel fast. By fast I meant fast enough,  he 
talked about it as though going from galaxy to galaxy were 
the kind of thing we'd talk about going from state to state or 
country to country. And the distances between galaxies are.

such that they must travel. either they travel faster 
than the speed of light, or they live for tens of thousands of 



years. Because the distances,  sometimes galaxies are 
millions of light years away, so they have to be able to travel 
faster than the speed of light or they wouldn't be able to do 
it in one lifetime. Unless they're literally billions of years 
old. Hmm. I don't know. It's just that he's very old, and such 
a tone of voice,  It's obvious he thought I couldn't understand 
how old was old. 

AC: Did he ask you how old you were? 
VH: Yes. I told him how old I was. I told him that I just started 
school and that I like school a lot. I liked learning new 
things and I remember that he picked that up and explained 
a lot of what he was doing in the same way: he was trying to 
learn new things about what our world was like. 

At this point, there is a short interruption as the tape is 
changed. When the recording resumes, Dr. Clamar has shifted the 
subject to Virginia's experience in France. She describes the 
weather of that day, nearly twenty years earlier. 

VH: It was a day like today. About this temperature, and overcast. 
It wasn't raining, but you wondered if it were going 
to. 
It was cool. And, urn, fresh out. It must have 
been,    spring or early summer, maybe June. Umm. The 
same time of year. (As the 1950 incident  - BH] And I think 
it was Sunday. We had all gone for a family picnic and my 
brother and I took off to look at the fields, the woods and 
stuff. We were wandering around in the woods. And, ah, oh 
yeah, I guess they had been looking for me. They were calling 
to me, and when I finally came back, I was telling them 
about the deer and they said, 'Where were you? We were 
calling you.' And I said, 'I didn't hear you.' I said, 'I was 
with my brother,' and he said, 'No, you were for awhile and 
then you weren't,' and he didn't know where I was, and I 
said, 'Yes, you were right with me.' 
He was claiming that no, he couldn't find me. I said I 
was right there. I wasn't far away and I was chastising him 
for being so thick, but of course I was much more interested 
in talking about the deer than I was in telling him where I 
was because, of course, I was just down there in the woods. 
And I described this deer. And the way I remember it is that 
the deer was looking at me and saying good - bye. The deer 
was saying good - bye telepathically to me. I have that as a 

conscious memory - the part where I am looking at the deer 

and the deer is about the size of a small deer. Medium - sized 

deer. I don't remember the name of the species of the same 

size, but I would suppose it was my height to the top of my 

head, and I was already grown up. I was five - feet - seven


inches then, so maybe it was a little shorter, but it was about 

that tall, and it just looked at me, and it had this nice, 

bright,  the same quality, big, dark,  big, bright, 

dark eyes shining. And it was gray, too. The deer was gray. 

Gray - brown. It was looking at me. The deer was looking 

into my eyes and saying good - bye to me. I was all excited 

about having been able to communicate with this deer. But 

when I described it, I don't think, I think I just said it 

was a pretty deer and I didn't know how to describe the 

experience. But it was as though the memory that I had - it 

was a conscious memory - of having the feeling that I was 

communicating with the deer. That I was in touch with it. 

And that it was saying good - bye to me. It was as though I 

was talking to it and saying, 'Well, don't leave yet,' and then 

it just sort of dematerialized, disappeared. 

AC: Had you ever seen this deer before? 
VH: No, I hadn't. I'd seen deer before, but not this one. 
AG: Had you ever had any experience that reminded you of this 
one? 

VH: 
Well, as I was saying, it was as though the big eyes reminded 
me a little bit of the big eyes of,    that the other 
people had. And I had a sense of a personality about this 
deer, but the personality was a younger personality. it 
seemed to me, than the older man that I was dealing with 
the first time. It didn't seem like the same person. I don't 
have a feeling about whether they were related or knew 
each other or, I mean, I had a sense of personality 
about this deer. There was a person inside this deer. That's 
what I knew. I had a strong sense of what the personality 
was like, and that it wasn't the same one. It's as though 
there's quite a big block to remember before that farewell 
scene,  just kind of an emotional one to me. It was as 
though I had a friend and I didn't want it to leave, and it 
said it had to go. Good - bye. But it wasn't a final good - bye. It 
was like an Til - see - you - again' good - bye. 



AC: 
You keep covering your eyes, especially your right eye, 
touching it. How do they feel? 

VH: 
This last time, too, they felt very sensitive, as though, you 
know, there are very bright lights in a spaceship. I remember them as being extremely bright. The light must not have 
been ideal for my eyes. I don't remember it being painful, 
but just very bright. As though you want to shield your eyes 
from that bright light. 

Dr. Clamar and I have frequently observed this physical reac· 
tion during the trance states of other abductees. Many times she 
had had to switch off the single, low - wattage bulb she usually has 
burning while her subjects are undergoing hypnosis. And now, 
just as Virginia is attempting to break through her memory block to 
recall what happened before she parted from the deer. her narrative 
takes a sudden jog back to the 1950 incident. The episode she 
describes must be dealt with even though it sounds, on the face of 
it, outrageous. 

VH: 
As you were telling me about shifting from that one to the 
other one. (moving from the 1950 farmyard experience to 
the 1960 encounter with the deer), it seemed as 
though I had a memory that I finally did talk him into taking 
me for a ride, but he said he would just take me up and let 
me look at the Earth. So I did that and looked at the ground. 
I'm trying to remember what I looked at. I think I looked at 
where I lived. You know, North America from outer space, 
and it didn't look too much like a map, you know. It was 
fully covered with clouds,    it wasn't so clear as the 
globes. I expected it to look like a globe, and of course it 
didn't because of all the clouds, hut I did look at it and I was 
high enough that I could see the water at the edges, and the 
Great Lakes. We were high. 

AC: 
What was the motion like? 

VH: 
Smooth. Like a smooth elevator. Fast. Like as though it took 
only about as long as it takes you to get to the top of the 
Empire State Building. Not over a few minutes to get high 
enough to see. Except it seemed to me that it wasn't black 
out there. Most of what I was looking at was light 
 

blue, but then there was black around the edges. I 
don't know how high up that is. I don't know that I could see 
the ocean. I remember that I could see the Great Lakes, 
though. You could see the water and a lot of clouds. It was 
pretty. So he humored me that much, to see what it 
looked like. 

Though this episode is difficult to accept as literally true, we 
must remember that so did each new detail of each UFO report 
when it first came to light. In fact, in the UFO literature we do 
have other accounts of abductees being taken on short flights.2 
Logically, there is no way to reject one aspect of a report out of 
hand simply because it strains our credulity more than other aspects 
of the same report. 

Was Virginia's trip the recollection of an actual event or was 
it, perhaps, something else - an interpolated dream or an artificially 
induced image like the nonexistent deer? Arguing for its 
being an interpolated fantasy, there is the particular moment 
when Virginia brought it up. Immediately before, she had been 
trying to break through a memory block about what happened 
prior to saying good - bye to the beautiful deer. In this and her previous 
session, Virginia went into long digressions just before each 
breakthrough, as if the imposed amnesia were struggling to maintain 
itself. Her account of the ride she "talked her friend into" just 
might be one of these digressions. 

On the other hand, her description of the trip is subtly precise. 
In the phrases of a six - year - old, Virginia said, "I looked at where I 
lived,  and it didn't look too much like a map . . ." A child 
would naturally expect it to "look like a globe," and to find it did 
not, though "it was pretty." There is not only a tone of authenticity, 
but also a surprising accuracy to her description. It sounds to me 
very much like what a precocious six - year - old might report if she 
had, in fact, had the experience she claims. 

Throughout the mass of UFO cases which have been collected 
over the years, there are literally thousands of instances in 
which the occupants on the craft almost seem to be showing off, 
demonstrating their capabilities before the astonished eyes of 
fighter pilots, radar operators, civilian motorists, and even astronomers.
3 A certain theatricality flavors this behavior, and I have 
alluded earlier to the theory that they may be slowly. methodically, 
"raising our consciousness" about their very existence. Perhaps 
Virginia's trip, which, according to her, took mere seconds, was 



more than just a favor granted a cooperative and intelligent sixyear - 
old. It may have been just one more technological demonstration, 
but one that was tucked away for thirty years until its 
revelation through hypnosis. As the reader must know by now, the 
patterns of UFO behavior are a great deal clearer than their meaning. 


And now, after another digression on the subject of her myopia, 
Virginia returns to the incident in the Alsatian woods. 

VH: 
The deer. That pretty deer that I was so fond of. It was like 
my best, long - lost friend. I didn't want him to go away. He 
said he had to. I think he said he'd see me again. He had to 
leave. It was a person. It was a friend, and I don't, ah, I'm 
describing it as though it was a mystical experience, but it 
didn't feel that way. It felt like it was a good, good friend 
that I didn't want not to see any more. How I found him and 
how the communication happened I can't remember. 
There's a block - out. 

I can think better when I cover my eyes because the 
light is,  I can see it through my eyelids. 

(At this point, the session is interrupted so Aphrodite can switch 
off the single office light.) 

VII: 
Umm. The deer. Where does the deer come from? I don't 
know. Maybe I can just sort of walk around in my mind and 
get around it. It's as though I can't remember how I found 
the deer except I sure knew him and I sure communicated 
with him, and I sure didn't want him to leave, and it wasn't 
a sad thing. It was like such an excitement! It was as though 
you bump into a friend you haven't seen for a long time 
whom you really like, and you've lost their address. and you 
were so glad you found them. I do remember my parents 
had been calling me. And, in fact, that is what the deer 
said - 'Your parents are calling you,' and I said, 'Well,' you 
know, 'that's all right.' 
I didn't have a sense of lapsed time, but my parents 
said that I had been gone a while, but a while was probably 
no more than an hour. It might have only been a halfhour 
,   it's that order of magnitude. But that's why he 
had to go because my parents were calling me. (Whispers.) 
'Virginia,    Virginia!' 'Well, you've got to go back and 




have your picnic.' and I said, 'There's no rush!' So it's as 
though when they really started to look for me, that's when 
he had to leave. 

(After a pause) I don't think it was a deer. I mean, the 
mental image of a deer is there, the visual image, but the 
inner experience of it is not of a deer but of a person. Very 
definitely a human kind of a person. I mean, I really like 
animals like my cat, and 1 know the difference between the 
person - heart of a cat and the person - heart of a people, and 
it was a person - people kind of thing. 

We were talking about,    I don't know what. About 
how beautiful something was. The woods or something like 
that. And yet when I got back, I had this blood on my 
blouse. Just a little. Just where you would if you had a nosebleed. 
At the count of three, let yourself go back to that period 
between leaving the deer and discovering the blood on your 
blouse. 

{Whispers} O.K. 

One,  two,  three. 
Yes. My parents were calling me, and the deer,  I was 
looking for the deer. It was as though I was looking at him 
and talking to him and he said he had to go away, and I 
heard my parents call and I turned my head to answer them 
to say something like 'I'm here!' and when I turned back, 
the deer was gone. 

But I didn't want to go back there because I was busy 
looking for the deer. I didn't think he was gone. He just 
disappeared all of a sudden. It wasn't like he'd walked 
away. But we were in the woods, so it was as though, well, 
maybe he stepped behind the trees or something. I mean I 
didn't have the sensation that it was (snaps her fingers) instantly 
gone except that it was in the time that I turned my 
head to talk to my parents. You know, 'I'm here!' In that 
period of time. the deer was gone, and I didn't know whether 
it had run away into the woods, but it was just completely 
gone. And so I spent a little while walking in that direction 
as though to follow it and find it because I didn't want to 
leave it. and a11 the time they were calling me, so finally I 
went bouncing back and all I could talk about was the deer. 
And they'd say, 'Where have you been?' And I said, 'In the 
woods with Roger' {her brother). 

'Well, Roger's been here. He was looking for you.' 

'Well, I went down there with him and I was with him 
the whole time.' 
'Well, he just came back. He couldn't find you.' 
'Well. I was right down there,' you know, which wasn't 
very far. 'I was right down there and he must have wandered 
off and got himself confused.' 1 was dismissing him as 
having lost me, and so they didn't pursue that anymore. 
There I was, and I had just come back from there since I 
answered them, but all I could talk about was the deer, and 
they were the ones - 1 guess it was my mother - who said, 
'You have blood on your shirt.' And I looked and it was 
fresh. It was fresh, fresh blood. It was fresh as when you just 
cut yourself. It hadn't begun to dry at all, and so I looked on 
my hands, and no blood, and my neck, felt my face, no 
blood, and felt my nose, if I had a bloody nose. No bloody 
nose. And all of that is on film. I haven't seen it since we 
talked, but I have that on film because my father was filming 
al1 of us at the picnic. And so that distracted me and I 
was all of a sudden preoccupied, like where did the blood 
come from? I never made the connection between that incident 
and the other one until I called my mother to ask about 
the scar, and she didn't remember much about that except 
that it happened and that we never figured out what it was 
from, and she was the one who reminded me about the 
unexpected blood she remembered from this other incident, 
and having it right on my blouse, my white blouse. 

I remember being very frustrated. They had been hollering 
at me. I mean, I remember thinking if they hadn't 
been hollering at me, I would still have been talking to the 
deer, and that upset me a lot. So I remember being grumpy 
about that. It's as though somehow I lost track of the deer 
because of that, and feeling very frustrated and disappointed 
and also as though I had lost something. Like if 
you're in a carnival with a friend and there are so many 
people and you turn to look at something and you let go of 
somebody's hand and it isn't as though they're permanently 
lost but you're separated and you know that there isn't any 
way that you can find each other for a while. It's a loss like 
being sort of yanked out of that transaction before it was 
over with. I have a big blank about what happened before 
that. Because the part I remember with that deer was the 
end of the conversation. But I remember it wasn't just I saw 
the deer that was pretty - it was the ending of a transaction. 

It's as though there's a big blank spot in the middle, and 
I don't know why that's blank. Because the ending is so vivid. 
Let me think about that. Why would I have a blank? I 
guess they had to give me, you know, a forget - it thing, because 
of my parents and family and stuff. 

AC: Amnesia? 
VH: Yes. Because if I told them I was doing this, that, or the 
other thing. it was still at that age that they would have, of 
course, they wouldn't necessarily believe me. It's interesting 
when I was talking with my parents about it a couple of 
weeks ago, my mother had all kinds of other possibilities of 
how I had cut myself which were the ones she had had at 
the time, none of which made any more sense now than 
they had then, but my father had absolutely no doubt at all 
that it might have been exactly the way I remembered 
it. He had a very high, well so did my mother, a very 
high confidence in our veracity. I mean we weren't lying 
kids and we didn't make up stories. But I think it (the amnesia - 
BH) was for our protection just in general. I probably 
would have told my friends in school and they probably 
would have given me a hard time. 

At this point, Virginia goes into a fairly long digression on the 
subject of her need to keep this experience, and obviously her 
identity, confidential. It seemed to me at the time to exemplify the 
struggle between an externally induced block and Virginia's desire 
to remember. 

VH: 
It's as though I have that kind of block about it and, uh, how 
can I give my mind a way around the corner of the 
block? 

AC: 
Amnesia can be lifted. So let yourself just relax. Stay very, 
very comfortable,  protected,  as you sink deeper 
and deeper into this marvelous, protected relaxation. You 
will remember things which lie underneath which you have 
forgotten because you were told to forget. They're going to 
emerge now. You're an adult. You're among friends who 
will accept your experience. You may have been given amnesia for a time because you were a child, a young girl who 
didn't know quite what to do with that information. Now 
you're an adult. You can lift your forgetfulness and look 
beneath and see what you're forgetting. Forgetting is a defense. 
We all use it for things that we don't know what to do 
with, or are uncomfortable with. We forget, but it is not permanent. 
It can be recalled. Now you are going to let yourself 
recall what is underneath. 

(Another fairly long digression ensues before Virginia finally 
breaks through her block.} 

VH: 
I'm walking through the woods. There's a very bright light. 
There's a ship just like they have in the movies. It's round. 
It's top - shaped roughly, but I can't tell exactly. There's so much light you can't really see clearly. 
It's interesting - here I go again with this feeling in my eyes. 
They're getting very tender. A very bright light. Pretty. 
Bright light.    There was some pink in it. And blue, 
Bright light. And then I hear almost like a whisper, 'Virginia, Virginia,' and I think it was in my head that they 
were calling me, so they knew my name or they knew how 
to call me in my head, so it was like my name was being 
called. And I realized that ever since I was a little kid I had 
this memory of being,  it must have happened the first 
time, too,  of having my name called. sometimes having 
my name called in my head. It's like I'm remembering 
somebody calling me. I don't ever confuse it that someone's 
actually calling me, except that, once in a while, I think that 
maybe somebody is thinking about me and I am hearing 
him call my name, but I don't have any confusions about 
what's outside and what's inside. 

But I heard them call my name like a whisper. Not that 
it was quiet. It wasn't outside, it was inside. (Whispers) 'Virginia, Virginia.' So I recognized the call. It was like 
somebody I knew, and I went over to it and I went inside. It 
was like there was a bright column of light. I don't remember 
whether I went up stairs or whether there was a lift. I 
think it was like a ramp that I walked up. No, it was like a 
conveyor belt ramp. I stood on it and it lifted, and there was 
a celebration. They were visiting because they were celebrating 
something. It was as though they had finished a research project and whatever the outcome was, whether to 
discover something. whether the research project or whatever - 
there was an accomplishment that they were very 
pleased about and very proud of, and they were celebrating. 
It was as though, you know, maybe like maybe he'd 
gotten a Nobel Prize for extraterrestrial biology - that kind 
of something or other. And he was - everybody on the ship 
was happy. Everybody was - it seems there were more this 
time than the three. And there was someone who became 
the deer later, was like a younger person, more like my age. 
Or it had the feeling of being more like a contemporary and 
it was a female feeling, like a friend. But I have that feeling 
about it and yet the deer didn't have it - it's as though it 
were the same person and yet when I think about the deer. 
the deer didn't necessarily feel like a female deer as opposed 
to a male deer. 

AC: Androgynous? 
VH: No. Maybe it was just a level we were communicating was 
one where you were oblivious to which sex it is, but there 
was definitely sort of a female friend on the ship, and also 
at least two of the original people who had been on the first 
trip. Maybe she was their daughter or their granddaughter 
or  whatever. It seems like 
it was a relative that got to come along to meet me and it was 
a party. 
They were celebrating and they said they wanted to 
share it with me because my research or their research 
was - interesting, I have a twitch in my leg now fat her 
scar - BH) - their research used their visit with me so they 
wanted to share it with me because my contributions had 
been really helpful for them. 
And so we were having a party and they were telling 
me about - they were having a hard time explaining to me 
why it was so exciting. except that the older man who had 
done the research was really beside himself with excitement. 
As though he had accomplished something that he 
was really proud of. It was real1y neat. And, uh, it had to do 
with research and it had to do with the study, but it seemed 
like its significance was greater. I mean, it was obviously 
very deep to him. It was something more than abstract research. 
It was something either that had changed their 



whole understanding of the way life is in different places! 
mean, it was something of heavy, heavy significance to 
him on a deeper level than just what we think of as a 
research project. As I said, it had almost a religious quality 
the way he felt about the research that he was doing. It was 
like his own mission. Something that he wanted to prove or 
something that he wanted to discover, something that he 
wanted to accomplish with his research, and he had succeeded in doing that. And, uh, I guess they wanted a sample 
of me to see how I was different. Because I told them I was 
grown up. I said, 'I'm a mature' - you know, like I explained 
to them I've done all my growing now. 'When you saw me, I 
was a child, and I have done as much growing as I am going 
to do.' And I guess they wanted to know how I was different. 
And I think they did take some blood from the inside of 
my nose. I think I told them about the last time and I think 
they didn't want to leave a mark on me. So I think that's 
what happened. They did do that. 

AC: Who did that? 
VH: Umm. Who did that? It wasn't him and it wasn't the woman, 
who - the girl, who was sort of my age. It was - oh, I think it 
was his sidekick from the original trip. They used the same 
instrument. It was like it had a handle that could just come 
out. It was like a touch on the inside. A sort of hum, you 
know, sort of like a - I'm searching for the right image that it 
looked like, that it will remind you of. It was a nice smooth 
texture. A microphone. Not the kind that is like an ice 
cream cone, but just - this is one of the small ones. a little 
one. Little hand mike. Right. But it was all smooth. It didn't 
have texture to it. It was like, I guess it didn't have a groove. 
It must have been - I think they use sonar energy. It must 
have been. Focused. I think it was sonar because it had a 
little hum like you held it and it would go Hmmm and then 
that was all there was to it. And, since I remembered it happening 
the first time, I hardly even paid any attention to it. 

AC: 
Was it put into the left or right nostril? 

I've been going like this {touching the left nostril), so I think 
it must have been here. I wonder why I was so annoyed to 
find the blood on my blouse? The first time, I was glad to 
have a visible, physical evidence of it. The second time, it 
was just sort of annoying. So they did that, and it was just a 
party. There was a 1ot of talking and a good feeling and they 
were playing, urn, playing light inside. There were 
lights flickering on. 

AC: Were there any refreshments? 
VH: I was trying to remember seeing if they had any refreshments, 
and I don't think they were able to give me anything. 
I don't think that they had anything that they gave me. 
Umm . . I think they were playing music, too. And I. 
think their music is more like what we think is like electronic, but not piercing and jarring. It was patterned, highly 
sophisticated, stylized and patterned,   . It was sounds 
that remind you of the sound of the wind going through the 
valley, for they were - you know, they were mellow 
sounds - they weren't piercing sounds or cacaphonous or 
anything. And, uh, there was some sound . It was like,   
it was quiet in the background because everybody was busy 
talking. They were talking to themselves, too. They were 
thinking at me, but they were talking to themselves and that 
had a sound.. it was a little clicky, a little,    it was like a 
voice was speaking, but a little bit more like smacking. You 
know, like (she smacks her palms) some of that stuff in it, in 
the talking. And at a higher pitch than we talk. More like, a 
pitch up here somewhere {she raises the pitch of her voice), 
somewhere up here, that kind of pitch. 
But I could hear it. And they were obviously excited. 
And they were trying to explain to me what they had accomplished, 
too. (Chuckles) It seems as though they - I don't 
think they put it that way - but I think they succeeded into 
talking somebody into considering us as an endangered 
species, (more chuckles) or something equivalent to that. 
Not endangered. No, I guess it wouldn't be that. 
Umm,    it was like a precious species, kind of a classification 
. But it was more than that, too. It didn't have so much 
just to do with Earth, it had to do with. I guess maybe 
establishing the principle of noninterference, something 
like that. One of those things people like to deal with in 
science fiction themes. The kind of moral code they like to 
imagine intergalactic travelers have about not mucking up 
or interfering with indigenous cultures. 

AC: Can you focus on the woman now? What was she like? 
 Well, she looked like them. Except it seemed to me she was 
a lighter color. It's as though the older you got the darker 




gray you were. But it could be - as I said, they were wearing 
these things - ! think they were their protective costumes 
and it might have just been that, the more senior you were, 
the darker it was. It might have been that. It seemed like 
hers was lighter, more creamy - colored. And it just felt like a 
younger person. Like a bouncier quality. It wasn't so deliberate, 
the way they expressed themselves; hers was more 
bubbly, more bouncy. And, ah, she wanted to hear about, 
you know, what the place (Earth - BH) was like. She hadn't 
been there and it was obviously a big treat for her to be 
there. I don't think she was really my age, but I think that, 
whatever she was. it was analogous to being my age. Then 
she was trying to tell me about the kinds of schools she went 
to. She was still a schoolgirl or whatever,  how long it 
takes them to get through school. And, ah, I guess they have 
a mating process, too, because it was as though she was trying 
to explain about dating or whatever they do according to 
what would be analogous,  what they do in their spare 
time. We were trying to discuss what young people do in 
their spare time. And, ah, she wanted to be a bioanthropologist 
like her father or grandfather, whoever he was. She 
was interested in that field. It was as though it was a very 
big deal for her to be there seeing me. (Brief interruption 
while the tape is changed.) 

I think that the blood sample was,    she was going 
to have a chance to examine it, study it, too. It was, you 
know, sort of like collecting moon rocks,    she'd get a 
piece of it. Umm. Maybe they took a tissue sample. I don't 
know. Interesting. So she was really excited about that. It's 
sort of like my souvenir for her, and there were more 
people along. And some of them were more junior to him, 
considerably, and they kept quiet. It was like they stood 
respectfully off a little bit, but they were very - it was sort of 
like the whole thing was very awesome to them. It wasn't so 
much that they were considered lowly creatures as that they 
were just standing there kind of being awed, you know, seeing 
a strange person and being at the party. The whole thing 
was really, urn, a heavy trip for them. 

Well over an hour and a half had passed since Virginia entered 
the trance state. I signaled Dr. Clamar and, within a few 
moments, we ended what had been, for all three of us, an extraordinary session. 

As the reader must know by now, the UFO phenomenon is 
fraught with disturbingly bizarre, even absurd accounts. The trouble 
is that, imbedded within this mass of nearly unbelievable material, there is a core of solid detail which we find repeated time 
and time again. The overall shape of Virginia's scenario does not 
differ in any basic way from the other abduction accounts we have 
been examining. Despite its science fiction aspects, Virginia's narrative is supported by internal evidence. First, there is the detail of 
the blood on her blouse. Its presence is confirmed by her fami1y, 
and it was even recorded on film. The blood was the result of a 
probe of some kind inserted into her left nostril to take blood and 
tissue samples. In another case, Betty Andreasson4 was abducted 
in 1967, though the encounter was not investigated for a decade. 
Under hypnosis, Betty recalled being on the examining table: 

BA: 
I feel shaky. He's taking an instrument and,    ah!  
Wow! (Deep fast breathing) Why do you have to put that up 
my nose. Oh! He's putting that thing in my nose, and it's 
going up and it's breaking through something. I don't like it. 
Oh, and I can't move. It's hurting! He had that thing up in 
my head! 

Sandy Larson, abducted in August of 1975, described her ordeal. 
In a hypnotic trance, she revealed what happened inside the 
UFO. 

Sandy Larson, It was like somebody took the knife and made the inside of 
my nose sore. 

Q: Made the inside of your nose sore? 
Sandy Larson: Scraped it. 
Q: Did you see anybody touching your nose? 
Sandy Larson: Uh huh. 
Q: Could you see hands? 
Sandy Larson: No. 
Q: Could you see an instrument of some kind? 
Sandy Larson: Yeah. 
Q: Can you describe it? 
Sandy Larson: I would say like a little knife or like a cotton swab. 


Q: Not very big, but something that was placed inside your 
nose? 
Sandy Larson: Uh huh. 

A cotton swab, of course, is round, while a knife is thin and 
flat. Though a volumetric object is not necessarily implied by her 
description, what is called to mind is a small, elongated instrument 
of some kind, and the pain that she associated with it. Virginia 
made a drawing of the "thin, hand microphone" type of object she 
recalled being placed in her nostril and it is compared in Figure 14 

to a similar drawing made by Andreasson. We are dealing 
here, I believe, not with three women's magical fantasies, 
but rather with three memories of what may well have been 
an identical "medical" instrument. And an identical unpleasant 
operation. 

The conversation that Virginia reported from her first 1950 - 
abduction has many parallels. She was asked about the lifespan 
of humans and various animals. She was shown star maps 
which apparently were color - coded, and which were "like 
slides,    you know, like windows,    " This last detail, to me, 
is a six - year - old child's attempt to suggest the effect of a holograph, 
since a window encloses a three - dimensional space rather 
than framing a flat surface. 

Betty Hill,in her 1961 abduction, also was shown what was 
apparently a three dimensional, holographlike star map. She, too, 
was questioned about astronomy and had very little more information 
on the subject than had Virginia: "I asked where he was 
from. Because I knew he wasn't from the earth, and I wanted to 
know where he came from. And he asked me if I knew anything 
about the universe,    he said he wished I knew more about 
this, and I said, 'I wish I did, too',   . He said, 'If you don't know 
where you are {on the star map - BH), then there isn't any point of 
my telling where I am from. 

Betty Hill also was asked about life - spans and her conception 
of time, though some questions were more specific and less philosophical. 
In an interrogation that again suggests to me more intelligence - 
testing than information - gathering, Betty continues, "So 
then he asked me, well, what did we eat? And I said, we ate meat, 
potatoes, vegetables, milk. And so he asked me, 'What are vegetables? 
and I said that this is a broad term and could cover a great 

variety of certain kinds of foods we eat. But I couldn't just explain 
what vegetables are, there were too many. And he said was there 
one kind I liked? I said that I ate a great many, but my favorite is 
squash. So he said, 'Tell me about squash.' So I said it was yellow, 
usually, in color. And he said, 'What is ye How?' " One thinks of 
little six - year - old Virginia trying to describe to her abductors what 
plants eat, and explaining that they eat nothing, they simply exist 
in the air. 

The ease one has following Virginia's account is hampered 
somewhat by its three different levels of discourse. In the beginning, 
she speaks much of the time as a little girl who is not quite 
seven years old, and her locutions are often charmingly childlike; 
"My friend on the ship," "The cute lizards," "The soft fuzzies like 
rodents and bunnies." But later on, as she recalls the French episode, her phrasing is frequently that of a Sixties teenager: the party 
on board is "really neat." She scolds her brother "for being thick." 
The female tried "to explain about dating," and the celebration 
was "really a heavy trip." 

A third level in her hypnotic account is the present - day, thirty - 
five - year - old Virginia's use of contemporary language. She frequently 
speculates upon what she is recalling so the reader must 
carefully separate "objective" memory from after - the - fact interpretation. 
This latter problem exists in almost al1 hypnotic recall, 
but is particularly obtrusive here, since Virginia has a sharply inquiring and speculative mind. Her apparent lack of fear during 
both experiences allows her a little imaginative elbow room. It is 
as if she were sitting in a sparsely filled theater near an exit, noticing 
wisps of smoke. and having plenty of time on the way out to 
wonder what is going on and why: this as opposed to being suddenly 
caught up in panic. 

A close reading of the transcript reveals the differences between 
memory and speculation. Virginia carefully says that her 
account of the leader's "research mission is "more the feeling 
that I have now when I try to think back about how I felt, rather 
than necessarily something that I was aware of then." She states as 
an accurate memory the fact that the inside of the UFO was very 
bright, and then adds that maybe the light there "was from a different spectrum." She recalls that her eyes were quite dry and 
irritated, but then speculates that "maybe they didn't humidify the 
atmosphere. Maybe they just put in plain oxygen or nitrogen, but it 
was very dry." The instrument inserted in her nostril "had a little 
hum, like you held it and it would go hmmm and that was all there 




was to it." But then she cannot resist guessing about a power 
source, and adds that it must operate by sonar energy. 

When she describes her idea of the accomplishments that are 
being celebrated, her language clearly implies a guess, an approximation 
that is metaphorical rather than literal. "They were having 
a hard time explaining to me why it was so exciting. It was as 
though, you know, maybe like he'd gotten a Nobel Prize for extraterrestrial 
biology - that sort of something or other." Obviously, 
what is most reliable in Virginia's account is what she presents as 
specific, objective recollection. Less reliable is what she frankly 
presents as honest, after - the - fact speculation. Being a lucid and 
verbal woman, Virginia searches for images and useful metaphors 
to flesh out the tone of particular memories. 

Taking an overview of the Alsatian episode in the light of 
other abduction cases we know, and treating it as a transaction 
between Virginia and her captors. this is what one sees: an adolescent 
girl who had been abducted ten years earlier is somehow 
lured away from her family and into the woods. Telepathically, 
she is called by name. She goes towards the landed UFO and is 
taken inside. She is made to feel happy, part of a "celebration in 
her honor," but the main event is like the former - Virginia provides the gift. Blood and tissue samples are extracted from inside 
her nose. She is then taken into the woods and given post - hypnotic 
suggestions that she will forget everything except the fact that she 
saw a beautiful deer. She returns to her family only to discover 
that an odd time lapse has occurred, and that there is fresh blood 
on her blouse. Nineteen years later, after hypnosis, she remembers 
that she somehow had contributed to the success of whatever 
it was the UFO crew had been up to. In an apparent one - way 
transaction. they got from her what they needed, and she was left 
with a bloody shirt and a confused memory. 

The situation of abductees being made to feel special, loved, 
members of the "select," occasionally occurs in abduction cases. 
The reasons for their having been singled out are almost always 
vague, but the abductees feel gratified and less frightened, though 
not necessarily less confused. An interesting parallel presents itself 
in the accounts of former followers of the Reverend Sun 
Myung Moon's Unification Church. At the beginning of their recruitment, 
an overpowering sense of being needed and wanted is 
systematically instilled in them by Moonie operatives. Lonely college 
students are visited in their dormitory rooms. fed milk and 
cookies, invited to love, drenched weekend retreats, and slowly 
won over before specific issues and ideology or dogma are even 
mentioned. This love technique is so thoroughly overwhelming 
that, when articles of religious belief are finally introduced. the 
subject feels like an ingrate to reject them. Bestowing importance 
and showering love upon the potential convert weakens his opposition and sets him up for whatever unusual demands are to be 
made of him. 

This potent method seems to have happened in a number of 
UFO abductions. For example, under hypnosis, David Oldham 
recounted the following dialogue. Standing terrified and unable to 
move before his abductor, he says: 

He wants,    to hug me,    says,    says, 'Why are you 
scared?' 

·I,  I've never seen something like this. ' 
Someone loves you,  very deeply,  and 
they,  want to see you. Close your eyes,  and be still.' 
{These soothing words are immediately followed by a painful 
operation of some kind.) 

'What are you,    what are you. putting me in? What? 
It hurts,  Oh! Can't see,  can't see,  can't breathe, 

(David is told by his captor to relax.) 
I'm relaxed. I'M RELAXED! 


Help! Help!' 

(Dr. Clamar tries to calm him, and then, seconds later:) 
Hands .. .in cramps,    in cramps,    in cramps! My 
arms,  Oh,  my body is,   vibrating. I'm just 
standing here,  I can't see.    Something is above 
me,  and it makes me vibrate. 

(Again, after all the pain and fright caused by this new process, 
David is cajoled by soothing - and flattering - words.! 

'Now',  he says,  'We are working . with your 
mind. We know,    you have very strong mental abilities.' 

It is difficult to avoid the impression that David is being loved 
and used, loved and used. The bestowing of affection and importance 
upon a sixteen - year - old boy helps immensely in reducing 
his resistance to whatever complex and hurtful procedures are 
central to his abduction. The inference is the same that I made in 




Virginia's abduction - the reality is the physical operation and its 
attendant pain, whi1e the sense of happiness and love is an enforced 
illusion. (It should be added that Virginia insists the good 
feelings of the celebratory party were just as real as the blood and 
tissue samples taken from her, so my reactions are frankly personal 
and speculative.} 

The use of calming, even deliberately misleading words be· 
fore administering a degree of unavoidable pain is a familiar 
method to tens of thousands of doctors and pediatricians. In fact. 
as I watched David lying agitated and tearful on Dr. Clamar's 
couch, a particular image sprang into my mind. It was that of a 
little boy being rolled out of the hospital recovery room, his semi anesthetized 
mind a swirl with pain and the surgeon's halfremembered 
words of encouragement. 

This medical situation provides a helpful model for evaluating 
what actually may be taking place in UFO abductions. Consider 
the complexity of a not - uncommon Earthly event - surgery to 
remove a diseased appendix. At least three major aspects of the 
experience can be isolated. First, there is a series of what the 
patient experiences as physical acts. He lies in a particular hospital room. He is "prepped" for the operation, and perhaps then 
receives a tranquilizing injection. He is rolled down to the operating 
room, and there he receives a general anesthetic. Though he 
does not actually feel it, an incision in the abdomen is made, the 
appendix is located and removed, and the wound is closed. Eventually, 
the patient awakens in the recovery room, and usually then 
experiences some pain. 

But second, and opposed to these physical facts, there are 
psychic aspects to his experience. The patient is naturally uneasy 
when he enters the hospital. The tranquilizing drug renders his 
perceptions vague and softly passive. The general anesthetic may 
provide him with seconds of dreamlike near - hallucination at each 
end of a period of unconsciousness. Recovery to full awareness is 
gradual and full of rambling, out - of - focus sensations. Afterwards, 
no one - least of all the patient - can absolutely sort out which 
perceptions are accurate, specific memories of his experience and 
which have been colored by the drugs and the general pschological 
context. 

A third aspect of this common medical procedure is the way a 
patient integrates this experience into his life - whether he 
dreams about it, more or less forgets about it, whether or not it 
lingers as a traumatic event. etc. Obviously, individual idiosyncracies will provide a wide range of subsequent reactions. 

If we were to select at random ten people who had undergone 
appendectomies. and then were to subject them one at a time to 
regressive hypnosis, we should expect a fairly wide range of response. 
Hospital procedures might differ. pain thresholds vary, 
and the ages of the ten might lead to different reactions, yet 
beneath these variations in detail and emphasis there would re· 
main a unifying core of description. It would be clear that all ten 
shared the same basic experience. 

And so it is, I believe, with Virginia Horton, Philip Osborne, 
Steven Kilburn, and the others whose accounts we have been examining 
in these pages. Three simple descriptions quoted earlier 
nicely encapsulate the range of response to one particular operation - 
the apparent taking of blood and tissue from inside the nostril: 


The withdrawn and laconic Sandy Larson, "It was like 
somebody took the knife and made the inside of my nose sore." 

Betty Andreasson, frightened and vividly susceptible to 
Pain. "He's putting that thing in my nose,    It's breaking 
through something.  It's hurting!" 

Virginia Horton, calmly comparing it to the earlier time when 
a similar sample was taken from her leg - "Since I remembered it 
happening the first time, I hardly even paid any attention to it." 

During her hypnotic recall, Virginia made many quick observations - 
remarks almost tossed away - which have their echoes in 
other UFO abduction cases. She described her captors as "having 
a hard time explaining to me why it was so exciting, except that the 
older man, who had done the research, was really beside himself 
with excitement." Also under hypnosis, Betty Hill said of the 
"tests" she was undergoing, "I don't know what they're doing, but 
they seem to be so happy about whatever they're doing." 

Virginia recalled that, while she was in the woods. she heard 
her name being called "in my head,  so they knew my 
name. They knew how to call me. "After his abduction 
in 1975, Sergeant Charles Moody said that his captors "knew who 
I was and called me by my proper name - Charles. They did not 
use my nickname, Chuck. It was like they could read my mind and 
I believe they did because the elder or leader would speak sometimes 
before I would ask something." Barney Hill, trying to find 
the proper phrase, said, "He did not speak by word. I was told 



what to do by his thoughts making my thoughts understand." Sandy 
Larson11 was asked to describe the telepathic communication 
she experienced and she answered that it was "like a thought 
between two people, when you know what the other person's gonna 
say." 

Virginia emerged from the Alsatian woods remembering only 
the excitement of her experience with the deer. She was annoyed 
by her family's insistence that she had been missing, because their 
hectoring questions interfered with her euphoric mood. "I remember 
thinking if they hadn't been hollering at me, I would still have 
been talking to the deer,    . It was as though I had walked out of 
the woods and claimed that I saw a unicorn. There was that sense 
of excitement and wonder." This euphoria at the end of a UFO 
abduction is commonly reported despite the initial terror. It seems 
to me to be an artificially induced emotion, perhaps some sort of 
powerful post - hypnotic suggestion. Despite the fear Barney and 
Betty Hill experienced when they were first taken, Barney described 
the denouement this way: "I see Betty coming down the 
road, and she gets into her car, and I am grinning at her and she is 
grinning back at me. And we both seem so elated and we are 
really happy. And I'm thinking it isn't too bad. How funny,   . I 
laugh and say, 'Well, there it goes.' And I'm happy."12 

If Virginia's memories seem weighted toward the euphoric 
and devoid of anything specifically frightening, the reader will 
remember that she still has not recalled the moment when, as a 
little girl, she first encountered the approaching gray - clad figures. 
Even her very earliest recollection - the sensation of being carried 
toward the UFO - is imperfectly remembered. In every hypnotically 
retrieved narrative I have witnessed so far, there are a few 
missing parts, as if there were either periods of actual unconsciousness 
or some moments which have been especially deeply 
repressed. Despite this omission, the long, detailed accounts of 
Virginia Horton's two abduction experiences both fold neatly into 
the overall pattern. The descriptions - Virginia's and others' cohere, 
and buried within them all are subtle clues to the possible 
meaning of these disturbing encounters. 


On its spectacular surface, a UFO abduction appears to be an 
encounter in which extraterrestrials capture and examine human 
specimens in some kind of anthropological - biological quest for information. 
But the questions Virginia Horton, Betty Hill, and other 
abductees remember being asked are the kinds of questions for 
which answers are easily obtainable: how long people live. what 
they eat. and so forth. To acquire this kind of information. along 
with basic anatomical data, a handful of human subjects should 
suffice; in fact, the typical abductee initially believes that he or she 
is one of the very few people ever to undergo such an experience. 
Yet so far - and despite all the obstacles I described earlier roughly 
five hundred individual abduction experiences have 
come to light.1 Surely hundreds, perhaps thousands of other such 
abductions must still lie buried in the silence of enforced amnesia. 


Why have the UFO occupants taken so many, and why, apparently, do they attempt to conceal the nature and magnitude of 
their operations'? Basic information - gathering on the species simply 
cannot explain all these separate events. Two other related 
possibilities suggest themselves, however: either the UFO crew 
members are taking something besides information, or they are 
leaving something behind with their captives. 

When Betty Andreasson underwent hypnosis to explore her 
1967 abduction, some evidence surfaced suggesting that she had 

also had an earlier childhood abduction. More significantly, she 
recalled that, during her 1967 encounter, when the instrument was 
removed from her nostril, there was a tiny spherical object on its 
very tip. This tiny ball had spiny projections around its surface, 
and she was certain that it had not been there when the probe was 
first pressed up into her nose. Was this some kind of an implant 
that had been put in place in an earlier childhood abduction? We 
know, of course. that Virginia Horton had a lengthy encounter at 
the age of six, and that during her second experience a probe of 
some sort was inserted in her nostril and caused some bleeding 
when it was removed. She remembers "not paying much attention 
to it." Being somewhat squeamish myself, I also try not to pay too 
much attention when I receive an injection or have a blood test 
performed, so I can easily sympathize with her attitude. The possibility 
remains that there was, in her case, too, something on the 
end of the nasal probe when it came out that was not there earlier. 
and which Virginia did not happen to notice. 

Dr. James Harder, professor of engineering at the University 
of California at Berkeley, is a distinguished UFO investigator and 
director of research for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization 
[APRO). In the course of his investigations across the United 
States. he has worked with over one hundred people who. 
while under hypnosis. recalled abduction experiences. The majority 
of these. Harder believes, show evidence of having been 
abducted before. as children, often when they were six or seven 
years old. Like Virginia, a number of them recall seeing the same 
captors both times. 

One inescapable inference to be drawn from this pattern is 
that a very long - term, in - depth study is being made of a relatively 
large sample of humans. and that this study may involve mechanical 
implants of some sort. Perhaps Virginia Horton. Betty Andreassen, 
and others as children had tiny monitoring devices installed 
high in their nasal cavities, much as terrestrial ecologists 
and zoologists install implants to monitor wildlife. A neurosurgeon 
informed me that certain brain operations - tissue biopsies, for 
example - can be carried out by entering the brain from below, 
through this convenient channel. If such a long - term monitoring 
system is going on, it would help explain the decades of surreptitious 
UFO behavior and the absence of direct communication. 

Dr. Robert Jastrow once said something to the effect that any 
extraterrestrials who have the technology to travel from their planet to Earth must be vastly ahead of us scientifically and intellectually; their behavior, then. would inevitably be somewhat incomprehensible. He added that if we understand everything "they" 
(and here he meant any UFO occupants} are doing, then "they" 
are probably not extraterrestrial in origin . It's a neat. clean way to 
state our own anthropomorphic limitations. Our astronauts on the 
moon conducted a number of investigatory experiments across a 
wide scientific range. An advanced culture visiting Earth would 
probably also conduct many simultaneous investigations across an 
even wider scientific range, with the crucial difference that we 
could probably not understand all of them - either their purposes 
or their technology. 

Virginia Horton's account is thoroughly consonant with Jastrow's dictum. "They were having a hard time explaining,    why 
(their research} was so exciting." It is irrelevant to raise the kind of 
objection that goes like this: "If extraterrestrials are rea11y here, 
why do they bother with six – year old children when they can land 
publicly and talk to our presidents and our scientists?" As if Ronald 
Reagan or Jimmy Carter, or, for that matter, Carl Sagan or 
Robert Jastrow, must inevitably be central to their concerns. 
Maybe yes, but equally conceivable, maybe no. Perhaps their kind 
of preliminary investigation requires monitoring a wide range of 
people over their entire lifetimes, an idea no less implausible than 
many others I have heard. To oppose the hypnotically retrieved 
abduction accounts solely because of one's personal notion of how 
"real" extraterrestrials should behave is unbounded arrogance. 
These hundreds of similar, highly specific recollections are the 
core of the problem. They represent data, which we must deal 
with. one way or another. 

There is another possible explanation for the apparently large 
number of individual abductions, one which does not necessarily 
involve either implants or a long - term study of the human species. 
What if the UFO occupants are taking something from their captives? 
Many people assume, again anthropomorphically, that if 
alien beings could travel across distances ranging upwards from 
four light - years [the distance of the nearest star. Alpha Centauri, 
from Earth) then they must indeed be supermen. and the idea is 
therefore ludicrous that they might need anything we possess. 
Even more outrageous, they add, is the idea that extraterrestrials 
might be afraid of us, or vulnerable in any way. But why assume 




any of these things? We may indeed possess something - a natural 
resource, an element, a genetic structure - that an alien culture 
might desire to use, for example, as experimental raw material. 

The evidence for a particular kind of sample taking is very 
strong. In the introduction, I al1uded to an encounter that took 
place in the Catskill Forest Preserve on November 8, 1975, and 
which Ted Bloecher and I later investigated. Two young men on a 
camping trip were awakened by noises close to their tent. Fearing 
the possibility of a scavenging bear, they went outside, flashlights 
in hand, and noticed back in the woods what they thought at first 
was a large Airstream trailer. Realizing there was no road where 
this vehicle rested, they investigated further and found that it was, 
instead. some sort of peculiar, oval, semi1uminous craft. Their 
flashlight beam then picked up a standing, silent, robotlike figure, 
and then another, and then still others. The two young men returned 
to their tent and built up their campfire after they discovered 
that the light of their flashlight, when held on one of the 
robotlike figures, immobilized it. 

A kind of psychological siege followed, with the creatures 
approaching and withdrawing, approaching and withdrawing, 
corning as close as fifteen feet to the terrified campers. The men 
stood. hatchets in hand, behind a barricade of upturned picnic 
tables and benches. One of them later described his feelings to me 
this way: "You know, you're petrified,    you're too scared to 
run,    I felt that I was going to die there, that's what I really felt 
like, and I had to defend myself. 

When the figures withdrew for a moment or so, the two campers 
made a dash for their car. The motor started and then suddenly 
died for no apparent reason. Its owner is a devoted car buff and he 
insists his vehicle was in top mechanical condition. It is at this 
point, I believe, that the two young men were abducted. Though 
neither has yet agreed to undergo hypnosis. our investigation establishes 
that there is roughly one hour missing from their account 
of that night's events; other evidence supports this theory.6 

The point of all this is quite specific. About a week after their 
ordeal, one of the men noticed a small, round sore near his navel. 
Shortly thereafter. a second, and then a third appeared close to the 
first. Within a month long, straight, raised welts appeared running 
from these round sores downwards toward his groin in a converging 
pattern. Eventually, he entered a hospital for diagnosis. though 



 

he told no one about his experience in the woods. (His companion 
also was marked, but by two diagonal cuts near the base of his 
spine.) 

Three doctors attended him - a kidney specialist, a dermatologist, 
and his own family physician. A kidney tumor was suspected, 
but the tests for it were all negative. An exploratory operation 
was proposed and rejected. A week later, the young man left 
the hospital and the marks gradually faded away. 

Betty Hill reca1led7 that, during her abduction. a long needle 
was inserted in her navel. She was told that this painful operation 
was a "pregnancy test" Barney Hill, meanwhile, lay helplessly on 
another table as one of the UFO crewmembers pressed a cuplike 
device to his groin.8 Judy Kendall9 felt that she was being "catheterized." 
But these are just a few of the many abduction cases on 
record in which the medical operations involve the frequently 
painful use of a needle or other device in the groin or the lower 
abdominal region. 

I asked a genito - urinary specialist his opinion as to what may 
be surmised from this recurrent pattern, and his answer was succinct. 


"If someone is interested in taking sperm and ova samples, it 
can be done this way, by going in through the abdominal wall. You 
can get both kinds of samples this way. My guess is that the raised 
welts on the fellow from the camping trip indicate that a foreign 
object of some kind, like a hollow needle. made a channel under 
the skin that later became irritated and inflamed, and possibly 
infected. The straight lines and their convergence toward the 
groin would support this idea." 

Like many other abductees, both male and female, Betty Andreasson 
recalled that a long, thin instrument of some kind was 
inserted in her navel. Under hypnosis, this dialogue ensued:1o 

Q: 
Did they tell you what the purpose was for the penetration 
of your navel? What was the examination for? 
BA: 
Something about creation, but they said there were some 
parts missing. 

Q: Can you explain to us what was meant? 
BA: It was because I had a hysterectomy, I guess. 
In a somewhat related account, a Wyoming man named Carl 
Higdon11 was abducted on October 24, 1974, while on a hunting 



trip. At one point, he was told to stand behind a glassy screen of 
some kind for three or four minutes, where he was apparently 
scrutinized. Immediately afterwards, he was told that he was not 
what they needed, and a short time later he was returned to his 
parked carnper.12 Higdon, in fact, is sterile, having had a vasectomy. 


These incidents support the unsettling theory that extraterrestrials 
need something from humans - possibly a certain kind of 
genetic structure - so presumably they must check through a large 
number of people to find what they want. 

"Diversity. He kept talking about diversity, which he was very 
interested in,    about how important biological diversity is." 
Virginia Horton's recollection of her captor's words further underlines 
the point, and leads to another startling possibility. 

"It was as though they had a puzzle that they were working on 
and it was important to them,   . 'We need a little bitty piece of 
you,    Ito) take a little, teeny piece of you home.' " 

Philip Osborne's memory of his childhood cut: 

"I see a sort of a representation of just being opened up very 
cleanly and something taken out and then just put right back 
together." 

Virginia Horton's second episode, ten years after the first: 

"It was as though they had finished a research project.,    
They wanted to share it with me because,    this research used 
their visit with me,  my contribution had been really helpful 
for them,   . It was something more than abstract research." 

A central difference for Virginia during this second abduction 
was the presence of ", someone,  like a younger person, 
more like my age. It had the feeling of being more like a 
contemporary, and it was a female feeling, like a friend,   . 
There was sort of a female friend on the ship. It seems like 
she was a relative that got to come along and meet me." 

Virginia said the female's covering was lighter, more creamycolored, 
and that she "felt like a younger person. Like a bounder 
quality,    more bubbly,   . I didn't think she was really my 
age,    she was still a schoolgirl or whatever." 

Blonde, clean - complexioned, sixteen - year - old Virginia obviously 
identified with this creamy, bouncy near - contemporary 
who appeared fully - formed aboard the UFO ten years after a 
deep layer of cells was removed from Virginia's leg. The obvious 
and disturbing connection between these circumstances had gone 



 

through my mind as I sat observing the hypnotic session in Dr. 
Clamar's office on that May afternoon in 1979. As Virginia relived 
the experience, however, it seemed to me that she, herself, had not 
grasped its implication. 

Can an advanced technology, whose home base is outside 
Earth, be experimenting, Luther Burbank - fashion, with various 
human genetic combinations? Our own present - day science has 
successfully mated sperm and ovum in a test tube, implanted the 
fertilized egg in a female body, and brought the fetus to term. 
Cloning is a much talked about area of current experimentation, 
moving slowly from lower animal forms towards man himself. 
There is no way to estimate what a radically advanced technology 
might be capable of, though Virginia's experience suggests an answer. 


Having speculated thus far, I must now reiterate my discomfort 
with the act of theorizing itself, particularly in the context of 
the UFO phenomenon. I deliberately refrained from extensive 
speculation earlier on, in the hope that the reader will also concentrate, 
as I have. on data and not theory. The data, however. 
does suggest certain conditions that any theory must take into account, 
particularly, as I have said, the decades - long period of UFO 
activity and the large number of individuals who have been taken 
for the one or two hours these procedures seem to require. The 
theory of alien experimentation with human genetic structures satisfies these conditions. 

In some UFO abductions - the Virginia Horton and Betty Hill 
cases are examples - extended telepathic "conversations" have 
taken place between the abductors and their captives. Occasional 
messages and even warnings, often pertaining to our misuse of the 
environment, have been reported. In a few other abduction cases, 
captives have somehow been shown cryptic, perhaps holographic 
images, again often bearing on ecological themes. (The Betty Andreasson 
affair, as detailed by Raymond Fowler in his book of the 
same title, offers a particularly vivid example of these images.) I 
have refrained from discussing in depth this highly ambiguous 
aspect of some abduction reports for a simple reason. Of the seven 
abduction cases which make up the core of this book, and which I 
have investigated myself, only Virginia Horton's abductions involve 
this kind of extended "conversation" and display of cryptic 
imagery. The telepathic communications involved in the five oer abductions apparently consisted only of minimal physical orders, 
words intended to calm the abductee, and warnings not to 
remember the encounter. 

Throughout my own study of the UFO abduction phenomenon, 
I have tried, in the recently hoary phrase, to separate the 
signal from the noise. When one examines all seven of these abductions, 
and then adds the many other cases to which I have 
alluded, one finds that every experience has its quasi - medical aspect - 
which often remains visible in the form of scar tissue. The 
inference is inescapable that these "medical" operations are part 
of the signal, while the occasional extended conversation may 
well be only part of the noise. Simple logic requires us to search 
for the clearest, most specific patterns we can find within the 
sometimes misleading mass of UFO reports. The physical operations 
are, indeed, central. 

2.

If the UFO phenomenon has been so active for such a long 
period of time, how, one might ask, has it managed to escape the 
attention of various world governments and intelligence networks? 
The answer is simple but not immediately obvious. There 
is reason to believe that the Air Force and other official agencies 
possess a great deal of photographic and even physical evidence 
attesting to the reality of extraterrestrial craft.13 However, there is 
also reason to be1ieve that there has been no communication between 
these spacecraft and any governmental authorities. If the 
UFO occupants are involved in the long - term monitoring of many 
human specimens, and/or experimenting with various genetic 
structures, there would be no reason for them to communicate 
directly with anyone, official1y or unofficially. In other words, the 
government might not know anything more about the UFO phenomenon 
than you or 1 - they would simply have better pictures. 


Consider what kind of announcement a president could make 
if this were the case. An apprehensive population is asked to turn 
on their television sets for an extremely important proclamation 
by the nation's commander - in - chief. This is what they hear: 

"My fellow Americans: It is my duty to inform you of a nearly 
unbelievable fact. The joint chiefs of staff and the CIA now possess incontrovertible evidence that extraterrestrial space vehicles 
are operating within our atmosphere. We have numerous films, 
close - up photographs. and radar tracking reports of these objects. 
They can outfly any aircraft in our defensive arsenal. Their means 
of propulsion is at this moment completely unknown to modern 
science. There has been no communication between these alien 
craft and ourselves. We have no idea of their intentions, or whether 
or not they are peaceful. We will simply have to wait and see." 
If that is all an American president could say to the people - and it 
is my guess that this is precisely all he could say - it is fair to 
assume that near - panic might ensue. Surely, most long - range 
planning would suffer. Who would save carefully for his children's 
education? Who would invest in any area requiring longterm 
economic stability? How would real estate and life insurance 
and other similar economic sectors fare under such an uncertain 
future? 1 can imagine that the policy of any government would be 
to withhold information about the UFO phenomenon until there is 
some official communication between extraterrestrials and ourselves. 

3. 

When we consider the unfolding history of the UFO phenomenon 
in recent times an interesting sequence presents itself.14 In 
the 1896 - 97 wave of sightings alluded to in the introduction, the 
craft often were described as moving slowly - though more familiar 
UFO maneuvers and great bursts of speed were also reported - 
seemingly to observe our towns and cities from a low altitude. 
It was. of course, an infinitely simpler world in those far - off 
days, and there was little anyone could do to interfere with these 
overflights. In almost all of the many contemporary newspaper 
accounts about these craft. they were assumed to be nothing more 
than the remarkable product of an Earthly inventor, whose identity 
and the location of whose factory excited great curiosity. 

The second major UFO wave, as I pointed out, was during 
World War II when hundreds of pilots on both sides found their 
war planes accompanied by small disks, occasionally only a few 
feet in diameter and often only a few inches away from wingtip or 
cockpit. Relatively few overflights of cities were reported; the 
UFOs' interest was apparently focused on our airborn achievements. 
Again, the reports show that most everyone assumed these 



SPECUI..ATIONS BoTH GRIM AND HoPEFUL 

so - called "foo - fighters" were terrestrial secret weapons of some 
sort. {Immediately after World War II. in 1946, a number of rocketlike 
craft were sighted over the Scandinavian countries. So sure 
was the Air Force that these UFOs were Russian secret weapons 
that General James Doolittle was dispatched to Sweden to investigate.
15 So it is a simple matter of historical fact that UFO sightings 
preceded by years any idea that they may be extraterrestrial 
spaceships. The widely disseminated theory that UFOs have been 
"wished" into existence by people in need of quasi - magical space 
people is untenable. There are cases, however. in which people 
have, after the fact, seized on the UFO phenomenon and adapted 
it for their own cultist purposes, in the same way certain primitive 
people have erected effigies of airplanes and made them objects 
of worship. The overflights of real craft in each case provided both 
the pretext and the symbol. The theory of an extraterrestrial origin 
for the UFO phenomenon only began to be formulated around 
1947 after observers like General Doolittle and others found absolutely 
no evidence that UFOs were Russian, American, or some 
other nation's experimental hardware.] 

The sequence of events I am theorizing follows a logical 
course to the present interest by UFO occupants in genetic experimentation 
and observation. Originally, at the end of the nineteenth 
century, our cities and towns were seemingly the objects of 
extraterrestrial surveillance. Infrequent UFO sightings continued 
to he made until the Forties. when earthly airborne technology 
apparently became the target of avid UFO curiosity. By 1947, extensive 
UFO flights over the United States and Europe were in 
progress, with particular attention being paid to military and 
atomic installations.16 By 1950, as we have seen, the abduction 
phenomenon has begun. Whether or not this sequence of events 
will stand up to scrutiny as a systematic escalation of UFO curiosity 
is uncertain; the iceberg of unreported UFO cases may have a 
different shape than its documented tip so far indicates. 

IV 

One of the many perplexing facets of the UFO abduction 
phenomenon is what seems to be an externally induced amnesia, 
forced, perhaps by post - hypnotic suggestion, upon the abductees. 
Several interrelated questions present themselves. How is the process 
accomplished? Why is it done, especially if the UFO occu




and so long as he remained that way, no post.hypnotic SU98estions could be implanted. And since Parker could remember the beginn 
ing of the abduction. there might have been no reason to bJock the recall of just one witn ess: Hickson 's memory. therefore, was 
left relatively unimpaired. The Pascagoula affair is a possible ex


amp)e, it would seem, of a semibotched abduction. 

If the amnesia that follows an abduction has been induced 
when the individual is in a trance very like our own hypnosis. we should expect a wide variation in its effectiveness and longevity. 
The reader by now should have a strong sense of this range in the 
ease or difficulty various abductees have had in piercing their 
own amnesia, but an additional case wiii help demonstrate the 

problem. 

A woman friend of mine, whom I shall call Mary, is a painterwith the kind of deep - seated and un easy interest in the UFO phe


nomenon that often indicates a buried UFO experience. Mary is 

happily married, successful. and the mother of three children. In 

the summer of 1979, in my Wellfleet studio. I told a group of 
friends a little about the Virginia Horton and Philip Osborne 
cases. Mary was there, and her eyes were wide. A week later, shecalled me and said she wanted to drop in for a chat. She a rrived looking nervous and uncertain. She said tha t as r had outlined the 

two cases and described the unusual wounds and the lack of 
memory about their causes, a memory of her own came vivid]y 



SPECULATIONS BOTH GRIM AND HOPEFUL 

back to her. She had been a little girl. playing in a neighbor's garden 
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

"I don't know if there's anything to this," she said, using a 
phrase I have heard many times, but I had an experience a lot 
like Virginia Horton's." Mary had also been struck by a further 
coincidence; like Virginia and Philip she, too, was born in 1943, 
and the incident, again like theirs, happened in the summer of 

1950. 

It was one of the strongest memories of her early childhood. 
As she was playing outside, she glimpsed a hummingbird, "the 
most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was absolutely gorgeous. I 
followed it around the garden as it went from flower to flower. I 
remember everything as being so vivid, the smells, the sunshine, 
the tall hollyhocks, and that beautiful hummingbird." 

Deciding to try to capture the hummingbird, she went into the 
house to get a glass jar to catch it with. She remembers later running 
back into the house holding the jar with her prize inside, and 
proudly raising it up for her friends to see - but the jar was empty. 
And, on top of this disappointment, she was scolded for something 
she cannot remember - perhaps for having been gone too longand 
it was pointed out to her that her leg was bleeding. 

She felt no pain whatsoever, and assumed the blood had gotten 
on her leg from someone else. The shock when she found out 
that she had not, after all, caught the hummingbird was more profound 
to her than the sight of blood on her leg. She felt as though 
she had been somehow tricked; the hummingbird bad to have 
been in the jar. She was angry and hurt. and the experience 
remains vivid in both its beauty and its disappointment across the 
intervening thirty years. 

I asked if the cut on her leg had left a scar, and she said that it 
had not. Mary has striking red hair and the myriad summer freckles 
that often go with it. And, at this point in August. she also had a 
handsome suntan. 

"Would you mind," I inquired, "if I looked at the backs of 
your legs?" I turned on the overhead studio lights and knelt down; 
on the back of her left calf was a thin, straight, horizontal scar 
close to the location of Virginia's vertical scar. Mary's freckles and 
suntan made the scar quite faint. so I called my wife. who was 
once a registered nurse, to examine the mark. "Yes," said April, 
"it's a straight, hairline scar all right." Mary looked at me, her eyes 
wider and rounder than I had ever seen them. "I never knew I 



 

had that scar," she said, "and you knew just where to look." 

This story is in a kind of investigative limbo. Mary has had six 
hypnotic sessions with Dr. Clamar, and through them all, she vividly 
remembers everything except what happened between her 
chasing the hummingbird and her arrival in the house with an 
empty jar and a bloody, painless incision on the back of her calf. 
She experiences the block as a wall that she can neither see 
through nor outflank. But there is a positive significance to this 
absence of recall. Thirty years ago, something cut her leg neatly 
and deeply across a relatively inaccessible place, the back of her 
calf; the still visible scar and her memory make this virtually certain. 
If the wound had a prosaic cause, it would most likely have 
emerged by now. 

Mary has had several disturbing dreams which seem to link 
her experience even more closely to Virginia Horton's. In late 
September of 1980, she woke up from a frightening near - nightmare 
which began benignly enough. She was looking at "a decorative 
thing. the way you'd see a map on a wall,    and I don't 
know where it was, but it seemed to go through transitions. First, it 
was essentially a piece of decoration to me, and when I looked 
more closely, I realized it was a map that related to the heavens 
, and then it seemed to be almost a window. and that I 
was actua1ly looking out into space. 

"Also, there was someone with me who was explaining this to 
me, but this person was sort of like a voice over my right shoulder, 
and not anyone that 1 saw in my dream. The thing was flat at first, 
like a chart, and then it was as if I was looking past it into the thing 
that it represented, or it sort of melted away and I could really see 
what he was talking about. 

"And the other image was looking down on a group of figures 
approaching me. This seemed to foUow the thing with the chart, 
but I think probably it should have come before. The figures ap· 
proaching me had a weird light on them,  there was something 
artificial about them, and the Hght shining on them was not a 
light I'd ever seen before. The voice was telling me that they weren't 
regular people. that there was something very different about 
them, and that's when I got frightened and woke up. I know there 
was more to the dream. but I think I blocked it because I was quite 
frightened when I woke up." 

I asked Mary about the chart. "It started like a colored draw




SPf..CULATioNs BoTH GRIM AND HoPEFUL 

ing. It had. like, a black background with the stars and planets in 
reddish tones. There were white tones and green colors, too." 

The disembodied voice was so like Virginia's patient explainer," 
who spoke to her telepathically, that I asked Mary about 
the actual sound of the voice in her dream, and she gave the 
answer I expected: "I don't remember hearing it as an actual 
sound." I inquired about its effect. 

"Explanatory. Like a teacher, or a lecturer. The voice seemed 
like it was explaining things to me. Sometimes I didn't like what it 
was explaining, but it didn't seem malign. The voice was not at all 
threatening." 

In the specific details of the star map and the particular way 
she perceived the neutral, explaining, but soundless voice, Mary's 
dream parallels both Betty Hill's and Virginia Horton's experiences. 
Dr. Clamar has hypothesized that the mind generally releases 
only those traumatic memories it can safely handle, and at a 
pace which also is manageable. It seems to me that fissures are 
appearing in the wall of Mary's amnesia, and that soon she - and 
we - will know more about how she received her scar, and what 
else occurred on that summer day in 1950. I suspect that Mary's 
beautiful hummingbird eventually will undergo the same transformation 
as Virginia's soulful deer. 

If. as I have suggested, abductees have their memories 
blocked through a process not unlike our own method of posthypnotic 
suggestion,18 and their memories demonstrably can be 
"unblocked" by hypnosis, why do the UFO occupants bother to do 
it in the first place? And especially why if they know the authorities 
have strong - perhaps absolute, physical - evidence that extraterrestrials 
are operating in our atmosphere? 

Two related answers to these questions should be considered. 
First of all, there is the possibility that the abduction experience is 
blocked from conscious memory for the good of the abductee. Virginia 
Horton said that she felt the amnesia "was for our protection 
just in general. I probably would have told my friends in school 
and they probably would have given me a hard time." A rather 
immense understatement! One has only to read the account of 
Hickson's and Parker's turmoil after their Pascagoula abduction to 
realize the advantages offered by not knowing. immediately afterwards, 
what has just transpired. In fact, in the years after their 
abduction, these two men have had unusually difficult experi




 

ences in their personal lives dealing with the mind - wrenching 
thing that happened to them. Knowing too much, too vividly, and 
too soon may actually strain to the breaking point the fabric of 
one's previously accepted world view. 

Memory blocks may also have to do with the abductee's role 
as a "human specimen" unwittingly being studied over a period of 
years. If people are being picked up as children, implanted with 
monitoring devices, and abducted a second time after puberty, at 
the very least the first abduction would have to be concealed. If 
the study is truly long range, the subjects would have to be kept in 
the dark about their role for many years, and a strongly effective 
block would have to be imposed. 

The theory that amnesia is used as a way simply to conceal 
the presence of UFOs from government investigators is not persuasive, 
it seems to me, when one considers the frank and open 
"showing off" UFOs have indulged in over the decades. But above 
everything. finally, there lurks the disturbing possibility that these 
enforced memory blocks may be extremely effective; the few 
hundred cases in which the amnesia has been pierced may ultimately 
represent only a tiny percentage of the actual number of 
abductees. The epidemic, I believe, may be almost entirely invisible. 




 -  -  -  -  -  - .(1£0. -  -  -  - 


WHAT CAN BE DoNE? 

I 

Our collective human ego is about to suffer the same profound 
dislocation it experienced centuries ago when Copernicus 
established that we were no longer the center of the universe. 
Having got used to the idea that the Earth is merely one of several 
planets circling the same star, we will soon have to adjust to the 
idea that we may not even be the most advanced intelligence 
operating within our own atmosphere. And we must now take certain 
steps to minimize the inevitable damage to our collective ego 
that will occur when the evidence of extraterrestrial visitation becomes 
overwhelming. 

First, I believe, we must try to make the invisible epidemic 
visible: we must try to take the measure of the UFO abduction 
phenomenon. How many people have actually been "used," and 
for what purposes? 

A recent experience of mine provides a textbook example of 
how we must be alert for clues in attempting to learn more about 
the extent of UFO abductions. A casual conversation at a Whitney 
Museum opening led to my being told - second - hand - about a 
recent UFO sighting. The witness was a microbiologist at a New 
York City hospital, and his April 2, 1980, sighting was a rather 
routine nighttime observation of an oval object with lights. The 
thing that caught my attention was my informant's feeling that the 
witness, a close personal friend, had been unusually disturbed by 
the event. The disparity between a powerful. emotional reaction 




 

and its relatively negligible cause - a distant night sighting - is a 
sign that the case should be looked into; a buried traumatic episode 
can easily be the hidden fuel for such a reaction. 

At the time I heard of this incident, I was very near the end of 
my work on this book, so I was reluctant to investigate further. But 
since my thoughts were focused on the issue of just how widespread 
the abduction phenomenon might be, I decided after all to 
pursue the matter. I called the scientist, whom I shall refer to as 
Dr. Geis and asked him about his sighting. Apparently, the UFO 
had never been closer than perhaps five or six hundred feet, and 
circumspect questioning led me to believe that there was no time 
lapse involved. He told me that, when he stopped his car to look 
up, and saw that the UFO had also stopped, he became extremely 
frightened. So frightened, he said, that he was afraid he was going 
to die there. 

I asked about his subsequent memories and feelings. 

"I've dreamed about this thing coming over my house and 
trying to get me, or engulfing my house. The first three weeks, I 
was even getting up at two or three in the morning and looking out 
the window. making sure that everything was all right. And, when 
I walked the dog, I had the strangest feeling that I should seek 
cover. that I don't want to be seen from the air." 

So great was the sense of fear he transmitted to me that, a few 
days later, I interviewed two of his closest associates to find out if 
he was a particularly timorous, nervous man. Separately, they assured 
me that he was firmly self - reliant and controlled. a man of 
greater than normal fortitude. It was the unusually intense fear 
that he radiated about this one incident which had been so striking 
to both men in the first place. 1 phoned Dr. Geis's wife, and her 
casual attitude toward the UFO sighting confirmed my feeling that 
there had been nothing more to the April incident than they consciously 
remembered. Therefore, I turned to the possibility that 
Dr. Geis had had an earlier encounter, and that this long - buried 
trauma had been reactivated by his recent sighting. 

"Have you ever had any other experience like this?" I asked, 
and his answer was immediate. "Yes, when I was a kid. It probably 
doesn't mean much, though." 

He was a teenager then, staying with relatives in a cabin near 
Wurtsboro, New York. While walking alone one night, heading 
towards Yankee Lake to view the spectacular night sky, he saw "a 
glowing thing that seemed to hover in the forest. That's a11 I 



WHAT CAN BE DONE? 

remember. I felt that something would come over the 
trees,  and grab me. I remembered that feeling when I saw 
that thing last April." 

It was significant that he had immediately connected the two 
incidents. I pressed him for more details. "I couldn't make out 
much more than that it looked large, it looked low, and it was 
aglow when it went into the bushes. It was like you're expecting 
something to come out and surprise you. . That's the feeling I 
had when I saw this thing .. What it was, I don't know, but it 
stuck in my mind at that point. It was sort of light green, a soft 
green with maybe a little yellow in it. 

"I had no time to study it. I don't know if it was there a long 
time or not. It went into the trees beyond my ability to see it, and I 
was waiting. I had the feeling that something was going to grab 

' 

me,    thats why it stayed with me an.d l had n\gh\mnr..s nbou\ 
that for quite some time." His phrase "and I was waiting" is a 
curious one, but then every detail he related was suggestive of the 
abduction scenario. He had no specific recollections of any time 
problems, but the incident had happened years before, when he 
had been only about sixteen years old. 

I phrased my next question with a sense of foreboding. I 
asked what year he was born. 
"Nineteen - forty - three, he answered. "What has that got to 
do with it?" 

I said something about "various patterns," and then came out 
with it: "You don't remember any kind of unusual childhood injury 
or accident involving, say, a laceration or an unexplained 
time problem or,  " His answer interrupted the question. 

"There is one thing that's always been a mystery. My mother 
even gave me a beating because I said I didn't know how I did it. It 
is a cut on my knee and I don't know how I did it. I was playing in 
the back yard and I don't remember gashing it, but I had a tremendous 
cut on my knee. and I have the scar to this day. The flesh was 
open to a fairly deep level My family doctor said to me, 'My God, 
you must have been playing hard. What did you tear yourself up 
on. metal?' 'No, I was just jumping,' I said. That was the only thing 
I could think of that might have caused it. I realized after I jumped 
that there was a little bit of blood." 

I asked how old he was when this happened. 

"Around seven, I'd say, because I was still in Brooklyn." 

When I inquired about the surroundings, he said that there 



 

was open land near his house, with a small woods nearby. "The 
scar," he said, "is peculiar. It's directly in the center of the knee, 
right above the patella, the knee - cap. That's what's so peculiar." 
He told me that he has "lots of scars, but I remember how I got 
every one. Except this one, and this is the one that's always puzzled 
me. You're welcome to see my scar. You're the first person 
who's ever wanted to see it! But it's in a peculiar spot. It's hard to 
imagine how I got it." 

Dr. Geis's final recollection was particularly interesting: 

"There was an old table in the back yard and I was jumping 
from that, and it was almost as if the wound just burst open. I don't 
actually remember it bursting open, but that's what crossed my 
mind at the time. 

"I told the doctor that's what happened: 'I didn't cut myself on 
anything: it just burst open. I never came in contact with metal.' 
Ordinarily, I would have cried, but there was no pain. None. I 
never felt anything." 

I thought immediately of Virginia Horton's and Philip Osborne's 
descriptions of their deep, yet painless wounds. Philip recalled 
that he was cut open "very cleanly, and something taken 
out, and then just put right back together." He does not remember 
bleeding as profusely as one might expect, judging by the depth of 
his wound. Virginia felt that her incision "just closes up and stops 
bleeding." Geis, however, was jumping off a table, flexing his legs 
perhaps minutes after his incision had "just been closed up." One 
can surmise that the UFO experimenters in 1950 had a healing 
technology that was not quite adequate for a hyperactive sevenyear - 
old boy from Brooklyn! 

Dr. Geis is the fourth person I know who was born in 1943 
and who suffered a mysterious wound, most likely in the summer 
of 1950, when he or she would have been about seven years old. 
The parents of each have been consulted; they remember the fact 
of their child's accident, but not its cause. Dr. Geis's father vividly 
remembers carrying his son to the doctor's office since the cut was 
so deep. Interestingly, Dr. Geis's wound - the one that "burst 
open" - was the only one of the four requiring stitches. 

I met Dr. Geis in late September at his office in a New York 
hospital. He is a strong, vigorous. no - nonsense kind of man, holding 
a Ph.D. degree and an important research position. I took the 
chair he offered and sat amidst the paraphernalia of his scientific 
projects. He stood up and delivered what was almost a harangue 



WHAT CAN BE DoNE? 

on the subject of why UFOs cannot be extraterrestrial in origin - it 
is impossible for spacecraft with living beings to cross such vast 
reaches of space, they would never look like us in any way, and so 
on. What he saw in New Jersey must have been some kind of 
American or Russian experimental craft. I have never seen a witness 
so obsessively bent on discounting the UFO phenomenon, 
nor have I ever seen a man so frightened of what he is sure can't 
possibly exist. 

I proposed a scientific experiment. It would involve his 
agreeing to undergo hypnosis on the origin of his scar and the 
sighting he made as a teenager. Prior to this, I would have written 
down what I thought would emerge from the process. My accounts 
would be sealed and handed to his research associates, to be 
opened after his third hypnotic session. If I could effectively describe 
what these two experiences of his entailed, there would be 
definite evidentiary benefits. 

He instantly declined my offer. He could never be hypnotized, 
he told me, because he hates ever to relinquish control. In 
fact. I could see that my proposition had deeply unnerved him. 

"What if I found out something so upsetting that I might die? 
What if it caused a heart attack?" 

His fear is a powerful adversary. During lunch, as he and his 
friends and I discussed the issue of hypnosis, the conversation 
veered to the subject of science fiction. I asked Dr. Geis his reaction 
to some of the recent sci - fi films. 

I'm probably the only person in New Jersey who still hasn't 
seen Star Wars," he answered. "In fact, the television commercials 
for that new one, the sequel, are disturbing to me. I can't 
watch them." He had seen the movie Close Encounters of the 
Third Kind and it, too, was upsetting. {This might be the place to 
reassure the reader about one detail: Steven, Philip Osborne, Virginia, 
Mac McMahon, and almost all of the abductees we have 
been examining had not seen that movie prior to the recall of their 
abduction experiences. Actually, the film. in its junk - jewelry vision 
of the UFOs themselves. its noisy, chaotic Exorcist - type episodes, 
and smiling, babylike humanoids provides a kind of control 
on witness accounts. Almost nothing within these pages resembles 
in any way the "Hollywood version of the UFO phenomenon. 
The contrast is actually startling.) 

Dr. Geis is steadfast in his refusal to undergo any hypnotic 
exploration of his experiences, though I remain hopeful that some




 

day he will change his mind. A psychotherapist friend of mine 
made an interesting remark after I told her of the many cases like 
Dr. Geis's in which the witness has a deep - seated fear stemming 
from a UFO encounter, and an equally intense fear of undergoing 
hypnosis to explore this experience: 

"Think of all the energy a person in a situation like that 
wastes, just trying to keep something unknown and disturbing out 
of his thoughts. It would be so much better to explore the experience 
and undergo whatever temporary pain there might be, just to 
not have to waste all that energy keeping the memory buried." 

This witness - reluctance to explore a suspected abduction is 
undoubtedly abetted by the kind of veiled threat against "remembering" 
that is apparently implanted in the minds of so many abductees. 
Steven Kilburn, under hypnosis, said that he was not to 
remember anything, that it was serious, that he might die. He 
knew. of course, that the threat was not literally true, but it unnerved 
him nevertheless. I thought of this when Dr. Geis said, 
"What if I found out something so upsetting that I might die? What 
if it caused a heart attack?" His remark suggested to me a buried 
threat, half - remembered and rankling. Hundreds of abductees 
have been hypnotized and no one yet seems to have been the 
victim of a reprisal. Ventilation of the experience is, I believe, 
therapeutically helpful for almost everyone. Fear of the unknown 
is the greatest fear of all. 

II 

By now, the reader is familiar with many clues, both obvious 
and subtle, which indicate the possibility of a buried abduction 
experience. If someone should strongly suspect such an encounter, 
the final page of the book provides information on how to go 
about reporting it. We will try to investigate as fully as we can. 

The efforts of the many individuals and organizations 
throughout the world to investigate and record the UFO phenomenon 
in all its complexity are, despite the best of intentions, inadequate. 
What is needed now is an official governmental effort. an 
agency whose purpose would be fourfold. (I make these recommendations 
despite the present national economic and political 
climate, which makes their implementation highly improbable. 



WHAT CAN BE DoNE? 

Nevertheless, the urgency I feel about these measures requires me 
to list them here.) 

First, the government has an obligation to prepare the public 
for the day when the extraterrestrial presence is obvious to everyone. 
The potential for panic and economic disruption must be recognized 
and effectively reduced by careful advance planning. 

Second, an open and official UFO investigative arm should 
be established, preferably internationally through the United Nations. 
That way, everyone would know where to file a UFO report, 
and also would know that the world's governments recognize the 
UFO phenomenon as a serious reality. Ridicule and the fear of 
ridicule must be eliminated once and for all. 

Third, a major central repository of UFO material must be 
created for use by the world's scientists, if we are ever to understand 
the mystery of UFO intentions. The efforts of Dr. Allen 
Hynek, Dr. David Saunders, David Webb, and Ted Bloecher to 
establish data banks in various categories of UFO information can 
serve as the nucleus for an international undertaking.1 

Fourth, and most difficult to imagine, there must be some 
kind of effort made to communicate with the UFO occupants. I 
have no more of an idea of how that can be managed than the next 
man, yet I believe it should be attempted. Intentions must be 
gauged. 

The realities are clear. Very likely a maj ority of the world's 
scientists believe that the existence of extraterrestrial life is probable. 
And if that is true, some of this extraterrestrial life must be 
more advanced than we, and thus capable of technological feats 
far beyond ours. We. ourselves, have proved the feasibility of 
space travel. and so eventual contact of some kind appears inevitable. 
That inevitable day, however, has been placed by most of us 
in a vague and distant future. For many, it is literally unthinkable. 
But the comfort of that distance, I am afraid, is the comfort of the 
ostrich's sand. Our desert oasis is not as isolated as we wish to 
think. 

For me, the conclusion is inescapable: They are already here. 
Though I do not want to believe this, and feel decidedly unnerved 
by it, I believe it is true; extraterrestrials have been observing us in 
our innocence for many years. and we have no idea of their intentions. 


I began this book, not with the idea of answering questions, 



 

but with the simpler goal of raising them. The evidence I have 
presented establishes the existence of a clear, hard - edged, and 
disturbing phenomenon, one which is far more pervasive than any 
of us may imagine. In these last few pages, I have tried to theorize 
as carefully as possible what it a1l may mean, but my theories 
remain only educated guesses. It is the reality of the abduction 
phenomenon itself which the reader must confront, not one man's 
speculation about its meaning. 

In 1964, when my curiosity was first piqued by the duB aluminum - 
colored disk I saw in the clouds above Cape Cod, I could 
never have guessed where it would lead. Since that time, I have 
become enmeshed in the lives of many witnesses whose encounters 
were. unlike mine, truly unnerving. I have spent scores of 
hours watching in helpless silence as these men and women relived 
through hypnosis the often harrowing abduction experiences 
of earlier times. Their resistance and calm and fear and fortitude 
have at times been almost physically palpable, and I have been 
moved. sometimes, to tears. For each of these people, at a certain 
moment in their lives, something happened, something almost 
unimaginable for the rest of us. 

I have tried to relate these encounters, these events, as directly, 
and with as little adornment as possible because I want the 
reader to experience them as I did. I have no solutions to the openended 
problems they raise, and least of all to the profound issue of 
their human toll. I do not believe the UFO phenomenon is malign 
or evilly intentioned. I fear, instead, that it is mere ly indifferent, 
though I fervently hope to be proven wrong. 

NoTES ON THE HYPNOSIS OF 

UFO WITNESSES 

A New York Times article on Saturday, November 3, 1979, 
describes a situation which closely parallels the use of hypnosis in 
recovering information in traumatic UFO abduction cases. It begins: 


SYRACUSE, November 2: A jury in a rape trial here in Ononda.. 
ga County Court found the defendant guilty last night. in part on 



WHAT CAN BE DoNf;? 

the basis of testimony drawn from the witness through hypnosis 
,  . 

The victim, married and twenty - three years old, was said to 
be so traumatized by the assault, in the spring of 1978, that for 
three months she could recall neither the circumstances of the 
rape nor the identity of her attacker. 

In a hypnotic state, however, she identified the assailant as 
Kirk Hughes, twenty - one, her neighbor and former babysitter. 

Further on in the article, the Times quotes William Fitzpatrick, 
the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, as 
saying that hypnosis was gaining acceptance as a forensic tool. 

"I can't think of a better example than this case," he said. 
"She was with him long enough to identify him, but was unable to 
do so because of the horror of it." 

The New York Times' science page of October 14, 1980, carried 
an article by Jane E. Brody in which she discussed hypnosis as 
a weapon against crime. Though she warned about areas of possible 
abuse, she cited the successes of hypnosis in helping to solve 
some well - known criminal cases: 

The rescue of twenty - six schoolchildren kidnapped at gunpoint 
from a school bus in Chowchilla, California, in 1976 was 
facilitated by hypnosis of the bus driver, who then recalled 
enough of a license plate number to enable police to find the getaway 
van. 

Last summer, a ballerina who had seen a man with a young 
cellist at the Metropolitan Opera House shortly before the cellist's 
brutal murder was able, under hypnosis, to describe the man well 
enough so that a police sketch led to the arrest of a suspect. 

In the same article, Brody cited an interesting statistic: 

In the Los Angeles Police Department, eleven police officers 
have used the technique in about six hundred cases, with ninety 
percent of the hypnotic investigations yielding information that 
led to the arrest of a suspect, 

. 

Hypnosis, then, is accepted as a valid tool by both courts and 




 

police departments. Properly used, the technique can be an avenue 
to truth, particularly so when traumatic events have buried 
specific details beyond immediate recall. 

The following is an account by psychotherapist Or. Aphrodite 
Clamar of her experience in using hypnosis in the investigation of 
the UFO abduction cases discussed in this book. 

AFTERWORD 

By Aphrodite Clamar, Ph.D. 

It was neither by design nor out of any interest in the subject 
of UFOs that I became involved with Budd Hopkins's witnesses 
and with the effort to ascertain what might lie behind their incomplete 
recollection. A colleague. Dr. Robert Naiman, knowing that I 
use hypnosis with some of my patients, asked me if I would be 
willing to hypnotize a woman UFO witness who had requested a 
woman practitioner. I agreed. 

I had never read anything on UFO abductions, and I never 
had had a patient who reported such an experience - nor, indeed, 
had I even given the subject anything more than the most fleeting 
thought. It was only some time later, after I had become involved 
with the UFO world, that I realized that the amount of available 
information on the use of hypnosis with UFO witnesses was limited 
at best. Having little if anything to go on in terms of the experience 
of others, I was forced to develop my own procedures. Thus 
far, Budd Hopkins has brought me more than a dozen men and 

women from a}J parts of the country, five of whom are the subjects 

of this book. Some of them told under hypnosis of events they had 
never previously reported. For others, the hypnotic state led to the 
recounting of additional details of reports made earlier. For all of 
them, the experience under hypnosis had positive results, providing 
a sense of release and re1ief for people who - as they told ithad 
undergone frightening experiences that both mystified and 
disturbed them. As in psychotherapy generally, the act of repeating 
the story robbed it of some of its fearful aspects. Here, under 
hypnosis, experiences - real or imagined - buried in the unconscious 
were brought to the surface and released. The mystery of 
the time lapse - the missing hours when the abduction was alleged 



WHAT CAN BE DoNE? 

to have taken place - was for some. And the subjects were 
helped to be at peace with and with the experiences 
they had reported. 

I began by employing techniques that I had used with the 
patients in my practice as a clinical psychologist and psychothera.. 
pist, making whatever changes I found useful as I developed 
greater experience with UF.O witnesses. On the assumption that 
reliving the UFO abduction (if this was indeed what it was) might 
prove to be traumatic, I sought to make the experience of hypnosis 
as easy - even comfortable - as possible, while at the same time 
giving the subjects a sense of control over what was happening to 
them. 

With these considerations in mind, I started each opening 
ninety..minute session with an information..gathering interview, 
asking for a short life history and other relevant background mate.. 
rial. Then I offered an opportunity to experience hypnosis for its 
own sake, unrelated to the UFO encounter. This trial run, I suggested, 
would acquaint the subject with hypnosis, so that in future 
sessions the process of being hypnotized - and what it felt Jike to 
be under hypnosis - would be familiar rather than strange. In this 
way, the subjects would be free to concentrate their energies on 
the experiences which they were reliving. 

I also wanted to dispel the notion that hypnosis was a 
"knocked - out," unconscious experience for those who undergo it. 
I emphasized that they would still be aware of things going on 
around them, that they would be able not only to hear my voice, 
but also to talk with me, to open their eyes if need be, move 
around and even write - aU while still remaining under hypnosis. 
For our purpose, I explained, hypnosis would be a useful toolthough 
not necessarily a precise one - that would enable us to 
explore, relive. and possibly understand the mysterious events 
they had reported earlier. Finally. I said, there was no way of predicting 
in advance what, if anything, would emerge. 

I then asked the subject to lie down on a deep and comfortable 
brown leather couch in the darkened, cozy, book - lined room 
that is my office. I took my place on a high - backed wooden chair at 
the head of the couch. When the subj ect was comfortable and at 
ease, I began what I came to think of as the "build..your - owncloud" 
exercise. using standard progressive relaxation and deepening 
techniques to induce hypnosis. In the hypnotic state, the 
subjects were asked to visualize a fluffy, inviting cloud of any 



 

shape, design. or color they wished, sturdy enough to support their 
weight and equipped with whatever objects or devices they might 
need when the cloud became the vehicle to return to the past 
experiences we would explore together. When this image was in 
focus. they were asked to imagine themselves stepping into the 
cloud, exploring it, making sure that it was satisfactory, then letting 
themselves lie back, relax and go on a short ride. 

Thus the cloud becomes a private environment, one that fits 
the subjects' specific needs, a friendly object they can control and 
direct, a personal image of unequaled possibilities. 

Other than David Oldham, none of the people whose case 
histories appear in this book were ever hypnotized before. All 
accepted the cloud image except one - Steven Kilburn, who preferred 
a sturdy house of his own design, three - quarters of which 
was underground, the rest hidden from view by thick trees. His 
fear of reliving his UFO experience was strong enough to require 
a well - fortified environment for his return trip. 

After the first get - acquainted session, the subjects returned to 
my office for two or sometimes three foHow·up sessions, each lasting 
one - and - one - half to two hours. Like most persons under hypnosis. 
these subjects had a distorted sense of time. Speech was 
slow and often labored as they groped to recall the past. There 
were long silences. At the end of a ninety - minute session, they 
emerged from hypnosis astounded to find that so much time had 
gone by. "It felt like twenty minutes" was a standard reaction. 

Two of the five subj ects whose UFO encounters are described 
in this book - and at least half of the others I have put 
under hypnosis - complained of being cold when they were reliving 
their experiences: a blanket is now kept ready when UFO witnesses 
come to my office. About half of them also asked me to turn 
off all the lights in an already dimly lit room. Aside from these two 
unusual requests, I cannot say that these subjects exhibited any 
different responses from patients I have put under hypnosis in my 
regular therapeutic practice. Their emotional needs appeared to 
be diverse, like those of other client populations I have known. 

I did not find any drug users among the subjects whom Budd 
Hopkins brought, nor any alcoholism, nor any strange habits or 
exotic perversions. Persons who claim to have had UFO experiences, 
1 now know, come in all sizes, shapes, ages, and sexes. 
Some are close to their families; others are not. They are handsome 
or ordinary - looking, neat or sloppy. Most are satisfied with 



WHAT CAN BE DoNE? 

their choice of careers and relatively successful. The five whose 
experiences are reported in this book are all college graduates, but 
it is not necessary to have a bachelor's degree in order to report a 
UFO experience. The people I have seen who claim to have had a 
strange encounter of whatever kind are run - of - the - mill people, 
neither psycho nor psychic, people like you and me. I could find 
no common thread that ties them together - other than their UFO 
experience - and no common pathology; indeed, no discernible 
pathology at all. 

Their fantasies are different from those of "ordinary" 
people - but only if you assume that the experiences they report 
are fantasies. The common variety of fantasy most of us indulge in 
at one time or another creates a special and pleasurable situation 
in which we succeed - like the five - foot - six - inch accountant who 
fantasizes himself leading the Boston Celtics to the National Basketball 
Association championship. But the UFO experience is not 
at all pleasurable; it is frightening, mysterious, deeply disturbing. 


If there is anything that links these people to one another. it is 
that all of them are deeply perplexed and troubled by their experience. 
Most often they are troubled by the time lapse or amnesia 
they have experienced, and by the question: "Why me?" And because 
we live in a society which - like most societies - does not 
hold the "different" person in high esteem, the UFO witnesses I 
have seen are apt to feel marked or stigmatized in some wayashamed 
and embarrassed by what they believe happened to 
them. They are hesitant about sharing it with others; boasting 
about it is usually furthest from their mind. Perhaps this accounts 
for the lack of conscious memory of the details of the experiences 
they report. They feel something "strange" or "weird" has occurred, 
but until they go under hypnosis, their memory fails 
them - in effect, protecting them from painful recollections until 
they grow strong enough to handle or integrate them. 

The sense that the UFO experience is a taboo experience, to 
be recalled or shared only reluctantly, soon becomes apparent to 
the hypnotherapist who works with these subjects. One reason for 
this reluctance may be that the memory of the UFO abduction has 
been repressed because of its traumatic nature. The mind has a 
way of protecting itself by repressing painful or frightening experiences. 
In extreme cases of this kind, we call the repression amnesia. 
In the case of the five UFO abductees described in this 



 

book, the amnesia was temporary. Under hypnosis, facts and 
events they had not previously told about came to the fore. In my 
judgment, if they were to undergo additional hypnotic sessions, 
additional details would rise to the surface. 

The question persists: is the UFO experience genuine, or are 

those who claim to have been abducted the victims of hysteria - or 

their own delusions? After spending more than fifty hours with a 
dozen subjects under hypnosis, I still cannot answer the question. 
"Aliens" from outer space are the stuff of science fiction. The photographs 
and other physical evidence that would establish these 
experiences as something more than fantasy remain disturbingly 
elusive. And yet, and yet,  the events recounted by a variety 
of people from scattered places are strikingly similar, suggesting 
that there might be more to the whole business than mere coincidence. 
In different years, different people from different parts of 
the country all report nearly identical experiences. All of these 
people seem quite ordinary in the psychological sense - although 
they have not been subjected to the kind of psychological testing 
that might provide a deeper understanding of their personalities. 
Yet, they report details of the experience that are startling in their 
similarity. The content of these accounts is markedly different 
from most of the fantasies reported in psychological literature. Far 
from the pleasurable, whimsical, wish - fulfilling fantasies most of 
us have, these bring fear and terror. 



Are these, then, hallucinations? Are they false perceptions 
which have "a compulsive sense of the reality of objects, although 
relevant and adequate stimuli for such perceiving are lacking?" 
English and English, in their Comprehensive Dictionary of Psychological 
and Psychoanalytic Te rms, describe hallucinations as 
"abnormal phenomena, though occasionally experienced by nor


mal persons." 

The five subjects whose reported experiences are recounted 
in this book may be described as "normal." That would not rule 
out hallucination. It is the curious similarity of their experiences 
that gives pause. But the answer to the question has not yet been 
devised, the key to unlock the secret not yet found. Budd Hopkins 
hoped that by inducing hypnosis among the five UFO abductees, I 
might be able to find a final answer. But what was revealed under 
hypnosis only deepened the mystery: new details were added, 
new experiences described, new questions raised. 

In the two years that I worked with the subjects whom Budd 



WHAT CAN BE DoNE? 

Hopkins brought to me, I used a variety of hypnotic techniques to 
help them "return" to the incident, relive their reported experience 
and try to make sense of it. I can not say whether the experience 
was "real" or not; that is, I do not know - nor could hypnosis 
claim to establish - whether the UFO experience actually 
"happened." I am persuaded, however, that all of the subjects do, 
in fact, believe that something strange and unknown did occur. It 
happened for them; it happened to them. Who of us is to say that it 
did not? Since it is difficult to provide a consistent explanation for 
these similar accounts, a real problem remains - a problem requiring 
further exploration. 

End of extract of this book.