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Is the “alien abduction” experience a physical reality or a deeply embedded psychological phantom? This landmark study by Dr. Alvin H. Lawson explores the “Imaginary Abductee” experiments of 1977, which revealed a startling truth: individuals with no prior knowledge of UFOs can “invent” abduction narratives nearly identical to those of “real” witnesses. By analyzing these transcripts, Lawson proposes a radical alternative to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH)—the Birth Memories Hypothesis.

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[Section 1]

HYPNOSIS OF IMAGINARY CE3 ABDUCTEES:

HISTORY, TRANSCRIPTS, AND ANALYSIS

 by Alvin H. Lawson, Ph.D.

 (C) Copyright 1997

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CONTENTS:

PART 1:

[ RATIONALE; I- BACKGROUND; II – TYPES OF UFO EXPERIENCES; III -THE IMAGINARY ABDUCTEE STUDY; IV – IMAGINARY AND REAL CE3 FANTASIES; V – ABDUCTION ANALOGS AND IMAGE CONSTANTS]

PART 2:

[VI – SHAMANS, CE3s, AND THE PERINATAL MATRIX; VII – FOUR IMAGINARY TRANSCRIPTS, ANALYZED AND CRITIQUED (Discussion)]

PART 3:

[TRANSCRIPT OF IMAGINARY SUBJECT #1, RM]

PART 4:

[TRANSCRIPT OF IMAGINARY SUBJECT #2, JM]

PART 5:

[TRANSCRIPT OF IMAGINARY SUBJECT #3, EJ]

PART 6:

[TRANSCRIPT OF IMAGINARY SUBJECT #4, RY; VIII: DISCUSSION; Bibliography and References]

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RATIONALE

THE IMAGINARY ABDUCTEE STUDY Twenty-one years ago this spring, a colleague and I took a group of people who knew relatively nothing about CE3 abductions, hypnotized them, and gave each an Imaginary abduction. We asked them eight simple questions, without additional cueing, and directed them to respond fluently and in detail. Almost all of the sixteen subjects involved gave us interesting narratives with many specific incidents about getting onboard, seeing alien creatures, having an examination, interacting with the aliens, and being returned. Comparison studies of Imaginary and “real” abduction narrative transcripts showed there were many similarities and very few significant differences between them. We came to believe that the difference between an Imaginary and a “real” abduction witness is this: both have lived out a fantasy, but only one of the two can be certain that he or she has not been deluded. Our study provided strong reason to conclude that “real” abductions are fantasies or hallucinations — especially in view of the complete lack of unambiguous physical evidence supporting any CE3 abduction case.

The Imaginary Abductee study made informed skeptics of us, and we assumed that in time replications of our research would occur. We also assumed that skepticism about CE3 abductions would spread. We were wrong on both counts. Since 1977, credulousness about CE3 claims has become more entrenched each year, and now there are literally dozens of New Age pro-ETH book titles published annually, and almost no serious skeptical alternatives are allowed to join the debate.

Writing in the fall of 1997, after the media excesses of the Roswell anniversary, and facing the probability of an increasingly active millennium-apocalypse crowd, we can only imagine what kind of hysterical belief systems we could be facing by 2000 AD, and after. Still, over the years, a few ufologists have not forgotten the Imaginary series and its implications for CE3 abduction research. The work has been mentioned favorably in many books, and after a half-century of familiar wild claims and stale abduction reports, proponents and skeptics alike seem to be in need of an alternative abduction theory.

BULLARD’S QUESTION In 1989, twelve long years after the Imaginary study, even proponent Thomas Bullard had some kind words to say about it, in the course of an otherwise negative critique (in Journal of UFO Studies). What was most significant was Bullard’s surprising argument for a replication of the Imaginary Abductee study: 

 

• Imaginary cases thus pose a vexing question — how can non-abductees tell stories even broadly like those of real abductees? For all the differences in frequencies and descriptive specifics, imaginary subjects still bring out unusual details and even extended vignettes of uncanny likeness to scenes from real abduction narratives. Non-abductees have no experiences to draw on, no hidden memories to tap. How can they still imagine a good abduction? More to the point, how can the hypothesis of an objective abduction survive if anyone can tell the abduction story, no experience required?Any answers can only be speculative, given the uncertainties surrounding the non-abductee experiments. We need to know more about them; we need very much to repeat them…. 

Though we differ on almost all other elements of CE3 research, I agree heartily with Bullard here if he means that there should be a serious and independent attempt at replication of the Imaginary study. I must add, too, that the answers to some of Bullard’s questions in the quotation reside largely in the thus far forbidden territory, for ufologists, of perinatal studies — i.e., events occurring before, during, and after birth. If Bullard or anyone else undertakes a replication of the Imaginary study without a willingness to open an eye to the perinatal world of the Birth Memories Hypothesis (BMH), their replication attempt will be biased and may fail.

One of Bullard’s questions bears repeating: “…how can the hypothesis of an objective abduction survive if anyone can tell the abduction story, no experience required?” How indeed? It is an important question — in effect Bullard is asking, “Are CE3 abductions real?” Actually, there is no question more portentous for the entire CE3 abduction phenomenon, because on its answer hangs precariously the validity of thousands of pro-abduction books and articles written worldwide over the past five decades. Also involved are ever-increasing numbers of ET-True-Believer investigators and their faithful followers, who are committed to the same beliefs.

AN ANSWER TO BULLARD’S QUESTION This paper is in effect an answer to Bullard’s question. We have long concluded that CE3 abductions are archetypal fantasies involving belief or deception in which an individual’s birth memories play a central role. Our case for perinatal memories was always strong — but it has been strengthened immensely by recent brain research.

One objection to the Birth Memories Hypothesis of CE3 abductions had been that the undeveloped fetal brain cannot contain memories. But neuroscientists in the past few years have shown that there is an “emotional memory” centered in the amygdala, which preserves a record of the first few years of human emotional life, including pre-natal events. By the age of three or four the declarative memory, centered in the hippocampus, and other developing rational faculties provide the beginnings of what we call conscious existence. But we can recall the “missing time” of our emotional memory indirectly, during traumatic incidents, and I believe also when we fantasize in uninhibited ways — as in a CE3 abduction fantasy.

The perinatal data we see in CE3 narratives are real. We found that the eight abduction sequence questions we used helped stimulate perinatal data from our Imaginary subjects. Similar questions must do the same with “real” abductees as well, for we have found an average of 17-21% of perinatal-related language and references in both Imaginary and “real” narratives. Each of the many steps on the abduction sequence carries perinatal potential because the entire sequence is a matrix based ultimately on birth experiences. The matrix is evident from the earliest human times in the shaman’s “vision trance,” and it is currently manifest in CE3 abduction fantasies — both of which have perinatal origins.

BONDING — THE CLIMACTIC PERINATAL EVENT The great end-purpose of the shaman/abductee/neonate’s adventure is the climactic perinatal event — the phenomenon of bonding with a symbolic or actual parent-figure, usually the mother. Bonding is also a major concern in psychologist and True-Believer John Mack’s work with abductees (see Abduction, 1994), though he avoids discussion of other perinatal processes. Perhaps it is the aliens’ symbolic connection with the bonding experience that makes the fantasy of alien confrontation such an unforgettable and extraordinary event for witnesses. All of the first four of our Imaginary subjects were seemingly obsessed with bonding early on — they all felt “watched” long before they saw any entities, and were eager to see the “somethings” they sensed were nearby. As it worked out only one of them experienced a fully positive human/alien bonding relationship, though another subject had a partially satisfactory bonding.

The Imaginary Abductee transcripts have never before been made available in complete form, and I have decided to “publish” the first four of them online, analyzed and critiqued. Significantly, two of the four Imaginary subjects’ narratives show distinct signs of the remembered effects of maternal drugs at delivery. This alone is near-proof of the connection I see between CE3 narratives and birth memories — but there is much more evidence as well. I expect the Imaginary transcripts to become part of the ongoing ETH dialogue, and I trust that serious consideration will be given at last to the Birth Memories Hypothesis. Perhaps the transcripts will help bring about a replication of our Imaginary Abductee study.

These observations give ufology a serious and scientific rationale for viewing CE3 abductions not as alien-caused incidents, but as psychological and mundane events. Few True-Believers will like what we say, or agree with any of it. Yet the arguments proposed deserve a more substantive response than the hoots and snorts of dismissal they have received for two decades. Read on, and decide for yourself the appropriate answer to Bullard’s painfully probing question.

I. BACKGROUND

During the spring and summer of 1977 Dr. W. C. McCall and I carried out the Imaginary Abductee study, in which sixteen volunteers were hypnotized and given imaginary UFO or CE3 (for Close Encounters of the Third Kind) abductions. Our study was one of the very few significant scientific research programs in the history of CE3 abduction research.

We developed the Imaginary study for several reasons. First, we simply needed more data about alleged abductions, and the study seemed to promise us abduction narrative data from fantasized CE3s, in a convenient synthetic form. We also wanted to learn more about using hypnosis effectively in abduction cases, and we thought the Imaginary work would help us with “real” cases. Above all, we were dissatisfied with the inconclusive results from our previous abduction case investigations, and we were seeking a way to be certain whether or not an abductee was telling a factual story.

Bill and I were increasingly doubtful about abduction claims, which had proliferated during and after the big 1973 UFO flap. We still remembered the 1975 Garden Grove CE3 hoax, and the dubious sessions with several other supposed abductees since then. We weren’t debunkers; more like enlightened agnostics. Neither of us gave much of a damn whether abductees’ claims were caused by real aliens or-as Melville’s Ishmael might put it now-by the aftereffects of an undigested deep-dish pizza. Yet we were curious as kittens to know why apparently sane people suddenly claimed they had been abducted by space-creatures, and we continued our investigations.

We started the Imaginary study with what turned out to be a set of boneheaded assumptions. First, we were nearly certain that the Imaginary narratives would be superficial, vague, and predictable because we thought subjects would be echoing details from media stories, films, and stale UFO lore. Related to that was our second expectation: we were ready to bet the farm that Imaginary abductions would contrast dramatically in particular ways with “real” CE3, so that we would eventually learn specifically how to tell hoaxers from actual abductees. Thus we fully expected the Imaginary study to be a kind of touchstone for determining the “truth” of CE3 claims.

We were very wrong, however, because our uninformed Imaginary subjects’ narratives contained dozens of detailed and subtle similarities with real CE3 reports, and no significant differences, given our limited protocol of only eight questions. Needless to say, we were most happy that we wrongly underestimated the Imaginary subjects. But what really stunned us was that a few of their narratives contained echoes of unpublished abduction cases that the Imaginaries could not possibly have known about, because the investigators had shared them with me privately. I wondered about that. A great deal. Our subjects had been selected precisely because they were unfamiliar with the UFO phenomenon and its literature. So how did the Imaginaries do it? Was it telepathy? Maybe alien tricksters?

Like much of our previous CE3 work, the Imaginary study produced a series of surprising and mystifying events for us, and we carried out the weekly sessions and studied their results in a continuing state of high excitement. Yet for a long while McCall and I were flying blind, with no way of comprehending the significance of the Imaginary data. Not until much later did we see that the experiments were an essential first step that would bring us initially to an understanding of many previously obscure details about supposed CE3 abductions and, eventually, to the Birth Memories Hypothesis.

 

II. TYPES OF UFO EXPERIENCES

Before plunging into the perplexities of the abduction phenomenon, it will be helpful first to put the variety of UFO events into perspective, and then to discuss briefly how abductions relate to other reports. According to The Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), CE3s are only one of several possible UFO experiences. We follow the CUFOS model throughout this book, although I have serious reservations about it that I will discuss in a moment. The CUFOS formulation:

TYPE	NAME	DESCRIPTION
1	Nocturnal light	Unusual light in night sky
2	Daylight disk	An apparently metallic discoid object
3	Radar case	Radar blips confirm a visual UFO
4	CE1	Close encounter/first kind – UFO within 1/4 mile or so
5	CE2	Close encounter/second kind – UFO leaves ground effects
6	CE3	Close encounter/third kind – UFO occupants observed

FIGURE 1-1: CUFOS’ RANGE OF REPORTED UFO EXPERIENCES

 

Some researchers add more categories, Close Encounters of the Fourth or Fifth Kind or more, for various kinds of alien activity; though that seems redundant and confusing. Once an alien entity is supposedly observed its existence is established, and what happens after that is by comparison irrelevant. For clarity and simplicity, I use the terms “CE3” and “abduction” interchangeably throughout.

DO CE3s RELATE TO UFO SIGHTINGS? The CUFOS procedure attempts to systematize the full range of possible UFO events, but there is a problem. Its neatly evolving arrangement implies that a Close Encounter of the Third Kind, during which entities are not only seen but may abduct the witness, must necessarily be related to UFO sighting events. However, there is simply no evidence that compels us to see sightings and abductions as integral parts of the same phenomenon. The only connections between them in CE3 case lore are provided by some alleged abductees’ occasional descriptions of an initial bright light, and later accounts of the supposed UFO interior, modified by four decades of mythology about “flying saucers.” In many cases, abductees are taken from their beds through walls or windows into an alien realm, with no UFO, strictly speaking, playing a part.

In addition, there are major differences between the UFOs described by abductees and those in sighting reports. The few good UFO “unknowns” in sighting reports are described as nuts-and-bolts objects, many of which are discoid. But no two abductees describe the same UFO. Their details of exterior shape, size, and color are often vague or contradictory – accounts of vast halls, multitudes of interior rooms, or even a second story inside the UFO are wildly inconsistent with abductees’ initial estimates of the UFO’s relatively small dimensions. Proponents say such disparities result from hundreds of different models of UFO vehicles zipping through our skies. But we conclude that abductees’ UFOs seem more like dreamworld vehicles than actual craft, and so sweet reason and the philosopher Occam’s merciful razor — the axiom that the simplest alternative explanation is best — dictate that such inconsistencies are best explained as abductees’ fantasies.

UFOs AND CE3s ARE UNRELATED PHENOMENA I believe that some UFOs are physically real anomalies (though not necessarily alien craft), but that abductions are non-physical, psychological events (specifically, fantasy/hallucinations, as we will show below), and so are unrelated to UFO sighting reports. Even if some sightings of UFOs are partly or wholly hallucinatory, as is probable, the fundamental distinctions between sightings and CE3s are demonstrable.

In support of this view, there has never been an authenticated CE3 case in which two or more people observe a distant UFO, watch it approach and land, and then see occupants emerge from it and abduct someone. Even one such event would show indisputable connections between UFOs and CE3s; but none exist, which seems odd if — as is claimed by some proponents — alien craft are abducting Earthlings by the thousands annually.

Even the “best” abduction cases cannot prove much of anything, since they cannot provide any unambiguous physical or other compelling evidence apart from purely anecdotal claims. Nor can the guestimated 50-year total of 2,000 to 5,000 abductions worldwide establish a relationship between CE3s and UFO sightings. Thus I am convinced that UFOs and CE3s are separate and distinct phenomena — a view obviously not shared by many in the UFO community. Paradoxically, in the interests of clarity and convenience I must continue the confusion by using CUFOS’ terminology throughout these essays. Future changes in fundamental ufological concepts and classifications will make a more rational methodology possible.

 

III. THE IMAGINARY ABDUCTEE STUDY

The Imaginary abductees were volunteers from local colleges and communities who were recruited largely through campus newspaper advertisements and word-of-mouth. The ad asked for “creative, verbal types” to volunteer for “an interesting experience in hypnosis and imagination.” There were ten females and six males, aged twelve to sixty-five. None of the main volunteers knew beforehand that the sessions involved UFOs. Two of the sixteen were experienced investigators whose sessions served as controls.

Before induction, subjects filled out a questionnaire testing their knowledge of the UFO phenomenon. To avoid cueing, these questions were phrased in a way that was as subject-neutral as possible. The same questions were asked later under hypnosis as a check. We would have screened out anyone who seemed informed about the subject, or who claimed to have seen a UFO. But — surprisingly, given the three decades of media sensationalism, 1947-77 — not one of our subjects could identify the locations, names, or other specifics of any of several well-publicized abduction reports. For example, none could remember hearing of the 1973 Pascagoula CE3, and none could identify J. Allen Hynek. Further, they had only a vague awareness that reports of “flying saucers” were continuing in the face of the U.S. government’s adamant dismissals. Most of them were skeptics about the possibility that aliens were visiting Earth.

Our Imaginary and real hypnosis sessions took place in a quiet and comfortable room in an Anaheim, California hospital. Too many abductees before us were regressed by self-taught hypnotists in somebody’s kitchen, with onlookers yelling out questions and dogs running around. Dr. McCall, a general practitioner M.D. with two decades of clinical hypnosis experience, had night duty each Wednesday, and for many weeks he kindly volunteered his time while on call. Fortunately, his work with us was rarely interrupted by medical emergencies, though we usually were not through with the regressions and discussions until the wee hours. McCall had already regressed a dozen persons allegedly involved in close encounters or abductions. He used an arm-lowering induction with all subjects. Normally, two volunteers were regressed each evening, and the sessions averaged about an hour and a half each.

THE CE3 ABDUCTION SEQUENCE: Most of the 2,000 or so known abductions typically contain many distinct stages, known collectively as the abduction sequence. The entire abduction sequence was obviously much too cumbersome for a hypnosis experiment, so we adopted the following ten-point (total, but eight-point active) sequence. Although it is necessarily basic, it is representative and was suitable as a model for our protocol:

1. Witness is in a normal physical and mental environment

2. Witness experiences a loss of normal consciousness

3. Witness sees a UFO

4. Witness is aboard the UFO

5. Witness observes the UFO interior

6. Witness observes entities

7. Witness is examined by the entities

8. Witness is given a message by the entities

9. Witness returns

10. Aftermath of the abduction experience

FIGURE 1-2: 10-POINT MODEL FOR IMAGINARY PROTOCOL

 

We standardized each Imaginary session with a procedure form that included a brief orientation and eight questions based on the abduction sequence. First, there was a brief statement to the subject, describing the nature of hypnosis and suggesting for the first time the idea of an imaginary UFO encounter. Following that, the subject was hypnotized, using a normal hand-lowering induction. When hypnotized, the subject was placed imaginatively in comfortable surroundings outdoors. An encounter with a UFO is then suggested, and the subject is directed to respond fluently to questions about it. An abstract of eight questions (or directions) follows:

1) Imagine you suddenly see a UFO. Describe that UFO.

2) Imagine you are aboard the UFO. How do you get there?

3) Imagine you are inside the UFO. What do you see?

4) Imagine you see some beings in the UFO. What do they look like?

5) Imagine the beings examine you. What is happening?

6) Imagine the beings give you a message. What does it say, and how is it made known to you?

7) Imagine you are returned to where you were when you sighted the UFO. How do you get there?

8) The aftermath: think of your psychophysical makeup. Have you been affected in any way because of the CE3 experience?

[The subject is awakened.]

FIGURE 1-3: ABSTRACT OF 8-PART IMAGINARY STUDY PROCEDURE

 

After the first two Imaginary sessions, it was obvious that an objective analysis of many “real” narratives, as well as the Imaginary transcripts themselves, was imperative if we were ever to understand what was going on. I devised a multiple-category analytical procedure (which I later refined and named Perinatal Transcript Analysis, or PTA) to quantify regression data and evaluate each CE3 session I could find in the UFO literature or from private sources.

Since we were comparing real and Imaginary narratives, my categories included three segments for patterns, or parallels with other CE3 cases. “Possible Pattern” was a hedge against my imperfect knowledge or memory of the fifty or so CE3 cases that I knew something about; I expected later data to allow “possibles” to become “Patterns” or “No Patterns.” “Strangeness” was — according to long usage of Allen Hynek and others at CUFOS and elsewhere — a core characteristic of CE3s, and PSI or paranormal events seemed to me then not far behind. “Subject’s Bias” and “Emotional Component” took account of the prejudices and sometimes highly excited responses of witnesses. We noted with interest, however, that Imaginaries were generally less volatile than “real” abductees. Cueing is inevitable in hypnosis, and I thought both accidental and deliberate cues should be noted not only as a measure of the hypnotist’s skill but as a check on the effects of cues on a subject’s narrative. The worst cues are never acknowledged at all because they are employed unconsciously. McCall used some cues deliberately, as tests of the subjects’ independence and truthfulness.

For the sake of consistency and clarity, I have employed the perinatal category “P” in the 1977 Imaginary/real comparative analysis, and in all regression transcripts herein. It was actually much later, however, that I became aware of the full extent of perinatal data in CE3s, and developed Perinatal Transcript Analysis as a way to measure them.

GENERAL CATEGORIES AND CLARITY OF ARGUMENT There has been some grumbling about the generalized nature of my categories, as if a few clear and rather easy to apply classifications would be less preferable than a vast number of specific qualities that would be impossible to work with. The complainers are mostly solid ET-True-Believers, in whose interest it is to find many differences between Imaginary and “real” CE3s.

For example, when I pointed out that several Imaginaries had entered a UFO through its bottom (through solid matter, with no doorway), they retorted that few or no such cases existed among “reals.” But hundreds of abductees claim to have been taken from bed, through closed windows, doors, or walls (i.e., through solidity) into a waiting craft. The general principle (passing through solidity) is the point here, not specific examples or means (doors or windows).

The PTA categories are useful and intuitive, yet the critics don’t seem to like my general category of “pattern” either — though it is always connected specifically, line by line, with details in the narrative text. Inconsistently, they also use my category, “no-pattern,” frequently without identifying it in denying Imaginary/real parallels. Again, CUFOS still uses the term “strangeness,” and I don’t see why it is not useful — it is always marked in reference to a specific passage of narrative and is easily comprehended, just like all my other categories.

I would like to know what method of analysis of transcripts my critics are utilizing, if any. I sense little more than their own firmly entrenched ETH perspectives in the carefully selected excerpts in the books they put out. Other than Betty and Barney Hill’s good transcripts and perhaps the endless sagas of Betty Andreasson, we rarely if ever see in published form a complete hypnosis transcript from an ETH proponent’s abductee. Should we not wonder why?

EVIDENCE AND ABDUCTION STUDIES AS SCIENCE A larger point is at stake here. We have no unambiguous physical evidence whatsoever that CE3 abductions occur, or ever have occurred. Therefore, we know nothing about them for certain beyond the anecdotal testimonies of maybe 2,000 alleged (i.e., unproved) abductees. That is to say, we cannot make a single substantive generalization about CE3 abductions that will hold to be logically true. (Not “CE3s happen” — but something meaningful about abduction claims we know is certain that begins with, “CE3s are …”). Since we have nothing except absolute uncertainty to help our work with CE3 abductions, my general categories seem useful; further, they are intuitive, easy to comprehend, and user-friendly. When “abductionology” becomes a recognized scientific discipline, I will become more specific. Until then, my categories will continue unchanged.

The PTA categories:

1) PATTERN (data parallel with other CE3s or UFO cases)

2) POSSIBLE PATTERN (possible parallel with other cases)

3) NON-PATTERN (no recognizable parallel)

4) STRANGENESS OF DATA (apparently fantastic or irrational data)

5) SUBJECT BIAS (S’s possible bias or partiality affect narrative)

6) PSI (S observes telepathy, PK, or other possibly paranormal events)

7) EMOTIONAL COMPONENT (S’s response-fear, happiness, pain, etc.)

8) CUE (a planned, deliberately leading question)

9) UNINTENDED CUE (an unplanned cue or leading question)

P) PERINATAL DATA (pre-natal, natal, or post-natal events or processes)

[Categories 8 and 9 above (intended and unplanned cueing of the witness) were used in the analyses but not in all of the comparison charts below.]

 

THE IMAGINARY ABDUCTEE DATA As always in our UFO research, the results of the Imaginary Abductee study stimulated many more questions than answers. McCall and I had found that supposedly real abductees were generally — though not always — poorer hypnotic subjects, and that their responses were often vague and even sluggish. He sometimes had to dig information out of them by laborious and repeated questioning, for a half-hour or more before they opened up. (See a sample “real” CE3 transcript in Figure 1-4.)

 

FIGURE 1-4: SAMPLE “REAL” CE3 WITH PTA ANALYSIS

PATTERN CATEGORIES --
1:PATTERN 2:POSSIBLE PATTERN 3:NO PATTERN 4:STRANGENESS 5:SUBJECT BIAS
6:POSSIBLE PSI 7:SUBJECT EMOTION 8:CUE 9:UNINTENDED CUE P:PERINATAL DATA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 P 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
| | | | | | | | | | |    (ABOUT THIRTY MINUTES INTO SESSION)
| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | |    QUESTION AREA: ABOARD UFO
| | | | | | | | | | |
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: How did you get there?  How did you get in that place?
| | | |X| | | | | |X|JK: (SIGHS) I don't know.  I was driving my car and the next
| | | | | | |X| | |X|	 thing is I'm someplace else and I don't know where but
| | | |X|X| | | | |X|	 it doesn't feel like the car is where it should be.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: Were you transported, or did --
|P| | | |X| |X| | |X|JK: I think they floated me.
| |X| | | | | | | | |MC: You think they floated you.  They floated you out of the 
| | | | | | | | | | |    car?
| | | | | | | | | |X|JK: I think so.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: Are you still in the car?
| | | | | | | | | | |JK: Um-um.
| | | | | | | | | | |MC: Okay.
|P| | |X| | | | | |X|JK: Oh, my head!
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: Where's Danon?  Is she with you?
| | | |X| | | | |X| |JK: I don't know. I hope she's okay. I know she'll be scared
| | | | | | | | | |X| if she sees that face!
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: What's happening how, Judy?
| | | |X| |X| | | |X|JK: I--I don't want to see him anymore.
| |X| | | | | | | | |MC: He's touching you, and he says that it's okay.  It's 
| | | | | | | | | | |    okay.  What's happening now?    Quickly, Judy.
| | | |X| | | | | |X|JK: (SIGHS) There's a lady.  There's a lady there.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: Well, what does she look like, Judy?
| | | | | | |X| | |X|JK: She looks like us.  She looks like a--a lady that's got 
| | | | | | | | |X| |    long hair.  She's got long black hair.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: What does her head look like?
| | | | | | | | | |X|JK: Looks like ours.  It looks normal.  It doesn't look like 
| | | |X| | | | |X| |    that other head.  That other head--it's just really scary.
| |X| | | | | | | | |MC: What is she saying to you?
|P| | | | |X|X| | |X|JK: She's saying, "It's okay, Judy," too.  But I don't know 
| | | | | | | | |X| |    how she knows by name.  I don't even know her.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: Um-hm.  What"s she say to you?
|P| | |X| | |X| | |X|JK: Don't worry, that everything is going to be okay.  Now 
| | | | | | | | | |X|    it's hot in here.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: What's happening now?
| | | |X| | | | | |X|JK: I think I'm kind of relaxing a little bit.  Not as
| | | | | | | | | | |    scared.
| | |X| | | | | | | |MC: All right.  Where are you?
|P| | | | | | | | |2|JK: I'm in a big room.  And there's windows on--all around 
| | | | | | | | |X|X|    the room.  And there's light.  I can see out the windows 
| | | | | | | | | | |    all the way around.
| | |X| | | | | | | |JK: What do you see out those windows?
|P| | |X| | | | | |2|MC: Stars.  It's really dark.  And I can see stars....

 

We had expected the Imaginary subjects to need much prompting, and so we loaded our first interrogation form with many specifics about UFOs, entities, and typical onboard events. But these leading questions were never asked because the Imaginary subjects (who were high-verbal and creative) almost always went immediately into deep hypnosis and responded to questions with fluent and detailed narratives. Their ease of narrative invention was startlingly different from most of the real witnesses we had worked with. McCall could usually introduce a situation –“Imagine you are aboard the UFO. What do you see?” — then sit back and let the subject talk freely with no more guidance than an occasional “What’s happening now?” (See the sample Imaginary CE3 transcript excerpt in Figure 1-10.)

One other group of subjects we worked with, hoaxers, was also made up of generally excellent hypnotic subjects who went easily into deep trance and were almost always detailed and fluent — to the point of glibness. Their cases ultimately always fell apart. Because of a few hoaxers and the Imaginary study, we learned to assess results from hypnosis sessions cautiously.

For these and other reasons, I began to suspect (on very limited evidence, admittedly) that subjects who are readily hypnotized and who give consistently fluent and highly detailed narratives may be more likely than not to be fantasizing or fabricating, either consciously or no. And on the other hand, I thought it possible that witnesses who are relatively poor hypnotic subjects and whose narratives are hesitant and sparsely detailed could have had an actual CE3 fantasy. We are certainly very skeptical of the endless parade of voluble deep-trance or even non-hypnotized “abductee victims” (now apparently numbering in the hundreds or thousands) supposedly discovered by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and their investigator-followers.

But consider this: Dr. McCall participated in at least 100 hypnotic sessions of various kinds, and of the dozens of “real” abductees he regressed he concluded that about 25% were hoaxing and the rest were deluded; that is, not a single one had actually been abducted. In contrast, many prominent ETH-oriented hypnotist-investigators have a hundred or more cases they believe are real. I have long wondered why so few of them ever mention hoaxes or delusions – unless they are discussing Phil Klass. Unlike McCall, who freely admits that once he was taken in, none of them have ever conceded that unscrupulous or deluded subjects have ever fooled them. If it can happen to Bill McCall, it has happened to the proponents, too. Many, many times.

DATA SIMILARITIES IN IMAGINARY AND REAL CE3s  All of the Imaginary subjects described some images and incidents identical with or very similar to those in published and unpublished CE3 abduction report literature. These analogous details ranged from obvious (small fetal humanoids) to uncommon (tunnel of light), to rare details of high strangeness (projecting/retracting lightbeams with “cut-off” ends).

The four Imaginary transcripts in Part VII below also show many high-strangeness data examples. As mentioned above, all four subjects imagined that they entered their UFO by passing through its solid bottom, but none recalled a doorway. Two of the subjects specifically said they felt they went up not into an opening but through the solidity of the material floor of the UFO. Three of them experienced various hi-tech body-sized tubes that appeared suddenly over them, were lowered to them, or sucked them inside. All this and no passageway!

Such Imaginary abductee data echo the ongoing fantastic assertions by “real” abductees that they are often taken through bedroom walls or closed windows or doors. If Imaginary subjects also report such incredible things, the case for the physical reality of high-strangeness events in CE3s is considerably weakened. Actually, every Imaginary/real CE3 data parallel — strange or mundane — is a challenge to “real” cases, and there are scores of Imaginary/real parallels. Some parallels and “possible parallels” from the first eight Imaginary Abductee sessions are listed below, divided into “standard,” “unusual,” or “rare” categories. (Numbers indicate multiple experiences.)

 

FIGURE 1-5: THREE CLASSES OF PATTERNS IN 8 IMAGINARY CASES

STANDARD PATTERNS	UNUSUAL PATTERNS	RARE PATTERNS
UFO Described:
UFO too bright to see	UFO brightness beyond color	UFO gets larger, smaller (2)
Disc-shaped UFO (3)	UFO w/Saturn-like rim (2)	Energy-field haze around UFO
Erratic movement	Feels UFO was watching S (4)	Space beam trained on UFO
UFO hat-shaped	Outside, inside no match (4)	Landing gear non-functional?
Aboard UFO:
S carried on, in trance (2)	Sucked up tunnel (3)	Boarding is a “long journey”
S blacked out (2)	UFO “lands” on S	S passes thru solid bottom (4)
UFO Interior:
Consoles, furnishings (5)	Fumes and mist present (2)	S feels “smaller” in UFO (2)
Very bright lights (6)	Humming almost hypnotic (2)	Walls curve up, enclose room
Cold inside (3)	Cold & warm by turns (3)	Only way out: solid bottom
Larger inside than out (4)	No furnishings, chairs (2)	Room keeps changing size
UFO Entities:
Human, Humanoid (2)	Animal, Apparitional	Beam f/ 8-inch eye runs UFO, “talks,” probes her body
Exotic (2), Robot (2)	2 entity types on UFO (2)	S’s mind creates alien’s form
Entities are telepathic (4)	Webbed fingers, toes	Doughboy-like robot’s metal arm comes f/hole in abdomen
Undev. facial features (6)	Bumpy pimples on face, hands	Eyes tiny, deep-set
Examination:
Head-to-foot, orderly (most)	Blood “vacuumed” f/ S	Bleeding stopped, healed fast
Entities kind but businesslike	S senses mind probe (3)	S sleeps long after exam
Paralysis during exam (4)	“X-ray” lights up body	Drugs limit Ss exam recall (2)
S calmed by entity (3)	Feet immobilized (3)	S not calmed by alien’s words
Message:
Telepathic (4)	Audible (2)	No message
“We Will Return”	Mouth moves, no sound (2)	Message encoded on bar
“You will forget “	Alien war threatens (2)	S sees alien hieroglyphics (3)
Ecological warning (2)	S is “bonded” w/alien	Alien home star is “Alexius”
Return:
Fatigued afterward	Itchy skin, dry throat	S feels “taller” afterward
“No one will believe me”	“Healthier” after CE3	“Scoop” mark scar on S’ arm
S feels good about abduction	Breathing better, after	S changed, no time passed
Disoriented by CE3	Breathing problems, after	Same “burn” scars, both feet
Aftermath:
S has a more open mind (2)	S forgets the experience	S puzzled about time lapse
CE3 emotionally real to S (2)	S expects “happening”	Maybe Imag CE3 was real?
S feels growth in values	S transcendentally happy	S was part of complex plan?

 

IMAGINARY DATA: EXTERNAL OR INTERNAL? UFO debunkers like to believe that films and media stories stimulate CE3 sightings, and there is some evidence for that. The Betty Hill CE3 was telecast in October, 1975, and though Travis Walton claims he did not watch it, just two weeks later Walton said he was abducted — by similar entities. Two other CE3s also occurred within weeks of the Hill program. It is also true that, since the early 1980s and the work of Hopkins, Strieber, and Jacobs, a monotonous parade of bug-eyed “grays” or fetal humanoids has become the rule in US abduction cases.

But in early 1977 we had no reason to think that particular motion pictures, news stories, or CE3 case details had unduly influenced any of our Imaginary abductees. The lack of outside influence probably explains why the first eight Imaginary subjects described examples of all six classes of CE3 entities. Without an immediately dominant entity type like the gray, the subjects were free to sample a broad range of entity types from traditional folklore, fairy tales, and sci-fi/fantasy.

The Imaginary study was completed by mid-year, four years after the 1973 UFO flap. This was months before several vastly popular cinematic space epics appeared, including Star Wars and the abduction-oriented Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Of course it was also years before the wondrous alien allegory E.T. (1982). These pleasantly blatant cinematic ETH fantasies and their legions of film and TV imitators could not have influenced the Imaginary subjects in any way. They are probably the last such group of abduction research subjects of whom that can be said.

A TEST OF UFO KNOWLEDGE UNDER HYPNOSIS We believe that the content of abduction experiences is largely inherent in the mind’s store of fantasies and perinatal memories, and that it does not originate in movies, TV, or reading. To prove that would be difficult, but we made an attempt. McCall volunteered the author as Imaginary subject #7, and both of us expected my narrative to be packed with lore from the dozens of CE3 cases I knew well. Ironically, under hypnosis I stayed in a very shallow trance, my responses were hesitant and sparsely detailed, and mine was by any measure the least interesting of the sixteen Imaginary narratives!

Why? Because I was a stunningly mediocre hypnotic subject. Ideally, subjects should go easily into a moderate or deep trance state, visualize consistently, follow suggestions, and be verbally fluent. I did none of those things well. My regression proved little about possible influences on CE3 narratives, but it showed us that what subjects know about the UFO phenomenon means nothing if they are not readily hypnotizable. Conversely, being a fluent and high-verbal hypnotic subject may make a subject’s fabricated or deluded thoughts seem credible, and perhaps even evidence of an actual CE3 event.

THE SOURCE OF CE3 LORE: THE MIND AND MEMORY We concede that some CE3 narratives are routinely influenced by traditional sources, and often tainted by reading matter and sci-fi films. Specific instances of influence are difficult to prove, but if a CE3 occurs after a book or film is released, the conservative wisdom is to assume the witness has seen it and maybe used it. In any case, some minor witness fabrication and adulteration are probably inevitable.

Yet the debunkers and the proponents, too, sooner or later will have to realize that the true source of all “real” and imagined CE3 abduction data is not UFO books, articles, films — or even alien visitors; the origin is internal, innate, and inherent in the human condition. The discussion in the next five parts of this essay attempts to make that clear.

IV. IMAGINARY AND “REAL” CE3 FANTASIES 

COMPARING REAL AND IMAGINARY CE3s I was so eager to find abduction answers that, after the regressions of only the first eight subjects, I initiated a comparative study of four imaginary and four real abduction narratives. I selected the real cases for their apparent credibility: one was a dual-witness report and the other three allegedly involved three witnesses each — rare among CE3s. Three of our real cases had received extensive investigative and media attention. The exception is Judy Kendall’s 1971 abduction, which McCall and I had investigated two months previously. I chose it partly because three people were supposedly involved, but also because it gave us needed comparative perspectives about witness reliability and investigator professionalism in other cases. The four real CE3s:

A) The Betty Hill Case. Hill, who says she was abducted along with her husband Barney in New Hampshire in 1961, is perhaps the most well-known abductee alive. The study used Mrs. Hill’s “dream narrative,” a record of dreams about her abduction written after her CE3 but before her hypnosis sessions with Dr. Simon.

B) The Judy Kendall Case. Kendall says she was one of three sisters abducted near Woodland, California, in 1971.

C) The Sandy Larson Case. Larson says she was abducted along with her daughter and boyfriend in North Dakota in 1975.

D) Elaine Thomas’ Narrative. Thomas was one of three women allegedly abducted near Liberty, Kentucky, in 1976.

For the purposes of this paper I have added eight mostly well-known “real” CE3s to the group, making a total of twelve “real” abductions, giving a more representative sample of “real” cases for comparison. They were taken from published and unpublished versions of complete or near-complete regressions in most cases. The additional cases, by name: Betty Andreasson; BS (Garden Grove); Charles Hickson (Pascagoula); Carl Higdon; Barney Hill; SF (Mojave Desert Case); Antonio Villas-Boas (Brazil); and Travis Walton. I will have more to say about these additional cases in later sections.

Although the above four CE3s were among the strongest that we knew of at the time, objective and professionally competent regressions of abductees were and still are not the rule in ufology. Since the early 1980s, investigators with unshakable beliefs in the ETH, alien genetics, and grays have proliferated. Many investigator/hypnotists are vocal advocates for the ETH, and they tend to treat abductees as victims, and during interviews or hypnosis they often ask leading, pointless, or confusing questions. It is more challenging now than ever before to find an informed yet objective and well-trained hypnotist.

In addition, the “victims” may be rather eager to demonstrate they have participated in a sensational abduction event, and the risk of fabrication and endless “alien channeling” by them is real. For these and other reasons, abduction transcripts (whether conscious or in trance) tend to present evidentiary problems: the narratives are occasionally unclear, repetitious, fragmentary, and they vary greatly in length and substantive content. (A recent example of a dozen or so abductees’ endless narrative meandering is provided in spades by Mack’s Abduction.)

Thus the supposed data base of 2,000 or so analyzed cases of the 5,000 or so assumed abductions worldwide is suspect as evidence for anything, let alone for visiting extraterrestrial beings. Our Imaginary CE3 cases were among the most professional ever done, and yet even they suffer some of these problems. Still, identical comparative data were applied to both real and Imaginary narratives, and I believe our procedure was as valid scientifically as the imperfect CE3 materials allowed.

IMAGINARY/REAL DATA COMPARISONS For the averaged graphed comparison of Imaginary and real CE3 cases below, I added up the number of data bits in each category and divided by totals to get percentages. The line chart thus compares 12 “real” cases for the revised sampling against the four Imaginaries:

	4 IMAGINARY BITS	12 “REAL” BITS
1-PATTERNS	955	1985
2-POSS. PATTERNS	305	722
3-NO PATTERN	44	273
4-STRANGENESS	325	703
5-SUBJECT BIAS	148	453
6-POSS. PSI	167	191
7-SUBJECT EMOTION	271	484
P-PERINATAL	590	996
(Bit totals)	2805	5807

FIGURE 1-6. IMAG/REAL BITS TOTALS IN 8 DATA CATEGORIES

As would be expected, individual narratives varied, yet similarities between averages of four Imaginary and twelve real CE3s were striking. As the line chart (Fig. 1-7) shows dramatically, averaged differences between Imaginary and “real” abductions was a mere 1.97% in eight analytical data categories. (Anything less than 2% is essentially identical.) If Imaginary and “real” CE3s are identical, it follows that “real” abductees’ narratives can be considered fantasies that have no connection with actual physical events.

The narrow average similarities are a remarkable showing for just four Imaginary and twelve “real” transcripts. Parallels are closest in the “Patterns” category (0.14%), which relates most directly to parallels with “real” CE3 cases. Half of the differences are under 2%, and two others are under 3%. The largest differential is in perinatal data, the Imaginaries having a 3.88% advantage — but only over the rather plump “real” average of 17.15%. This means that together, between a fifth and a sixth of the meaningful imagery and events in Imaginary/real transcripts is perinatal — just as we have been saying. There are no large discrepancies anywhere. It is interesting that the second-largest difference is under “No Pattern” — where there are 3.13% fewer instances in Imaginary than in “real” data. In effect, of course, if we had a thousand Imaginary/real cases under comparison, the chart would have but a single line across it — because Imaginary and real CE3 fantasies are one and the same.

McCall and I have long felt that supposed differences between Imaginary and “real” CE3 narratives are trivial. A consideration of the two types of events is instructive:

IMAGINARY ABDUCTIONS	“REAL” ABDUCTIONS
Voluntary event	Allegedly involuntary
No physical effects	Physical effects alleged, not proved
Usually fluent narration	Sometimes hesitant narration
Witness controls emotions	Witness is often emotional
No sense of “time lapse”	“Time lapse” allegedly remembered
No amnesia period	Amnesia period claimed
Few nightmares afterward	Dreams, nightmares reported
No physiological effects	Physiological effects alleged, not proved
No memory of CE3 experience	Conscious memory of CE3 alleged
No apparent aftermath	Psychic aftereffects alleged

FIG. 1-8: IMAG/REAL CE3 ALLEGED DIFFERENCES

As can be seen from Fig. 1-8, there are few certainties in the alleged differences in data from Imaginary and real subjects. Claimed contradictions, such as physical and physiological effects, are illusory because they are either qualified or remain allegations instead of established facts. Also, the involuntary mode and supposed greater emotional intensity of real CE3s are no more evidence for their physical reality than they would be for daydreams, nightmares, or hallucinations.

We assume that “involuntary” means something like — “His auto was stopped by a UFO and he was beamed up!” Some CE3s make that claim; many other abductees are allegedly “taken” while asleep, and then (also allegedly) put back in their beds afterwards. Such data suggests nothing more than nightmares — and until we have persuasive physical or other evidence to the contrary, the case is closed. Claims for an actual “involuntary” daytime abduction would be convincing if we had physical evidence that has successfully survived rigorous scientific scrutiny. Problem is, we do not have such evidence for any CE3.

We do have good evidence, however, that people tend to have fantasies about exciting events like an alien abduction, and that afterwards they sometimes have trouble telling their fantasy from reality. A person may truly believe he/she really was abducted, and may even give a good hypnotic or conscious report of what we know as a CE3. But lacking any evidence that the abduction event was physical, we must conclude that such experiences are fantasies.

Conclusion: distinctions between imaginary and real abductions remain trivial or uncertain, while their similarities are crucial and extensive, showing that their narrative content and related qualities render them for all practical purposes essentially the same. A large number each of Imaginary and real CE3 transcripts, analyzed and averaged, would have a virtually identical line chart profile.

REAL AND IMAGINARY UFO ENTITIES Alien creature types will be discussed in a later section, so a few general observations will do for now. Descriptions of alleged UFO entities, which is one of the more elaborate Imaginary/real parallels, can be classified into six distinct types: human, humanoid, animal, robot, exotic, and apparitional. These categories are readily observed in worldwide folklore, mythology, and literary traditions, where the same classifications flourish. Every alien creature in abduction report literature fits one of these classes, and as we have pointed out above, all six CE3 entity types were described by our first eight Imaginary subjects. (See Fig. 1-9) Individual entities of each type may differ, but their classifications follow Earthly models unvaryingly.

 

The entity categories arbitrarily place human limits on what an alien might look like, and that poses a credibility problem for ETH proponents. If thousands of actual ET creatures were visiting Earth, some of them would surely be types not anticipated by Grimm’s fairy tales, TV cartoon heroes, or cereal-box logos. With an eternity and all the universe to evolve and specialize in, developmentally speaking, a few actual aliens should resemble things Earthlings have so far not imagined. Yet no Imaginary and no “real” abductees that I know about have ever described an entity that could not be classified in one of the six known entity categories. For instance, our Imaginary subject #4 told of an apparition that eerily duplicated a creature described in a 1974 Rhodesian abduction:

IMAGINARY APPARITION

• …The more I look at it, the more it actually becomes more human as I look at it. It started out very elongated…it had the parts of a human face, but they-it didn’t look right somehow. It’s like there was no ears, or-the more I look at it-it begins to conform to what I want to see as being human. I wonder if it’s giving me this illusion of itself, strictly through my mind. Because it keeps changing as it walks toward me. I get the feeling that it’s changing for me….

— Imaginary subject #4 (See apparitional entity in Fig. 1-9)

“REAL” APPARITION

• …We were [placed] inside the motorcar…. And then the form which was beamed straight to the backseat and sat there the entire journey told me I would see what I wanted to see in and around and at itself. I would only see what I wanted to see: if I wanted it to look like a monster, then it looked like a monster. I don’t know…what they did…— Witness, 1974 Rhodesian CE3

Here are two nearly identical descriptions by an Imaginary and a real witness of apparitional, shape-shifting entities, taken from reports about as geographically remote from each other as is conceivable. What the two have in common clearly suggests a psychological rather than a physical phenomenon, which makes it certain that both entities are products of fantasy. Similar parallels can be found in other Imaginary/real entity descriptions.

The Imaginary Abductee study results led us to conclude that CE3 entities’ origins are not extraterrestrial but mundane: their sources are human psychology, human experience, and human culture, like everything else in CE3 abduction mythology.

WERE THE IMAGINARY HYPNOSIS SESSIONS RELIABLE? In view of the anti-ETH implications of the Imaginary study, some proponents may wonder whether hypnosis is a reliable research tool, or one that produces biased or misleading data. Hypnosis is a late-comer to UFO investigations. What little we know about UFO sightings (as opposed to CE3 abductions) has traditionally come from reports by witnesses in conscious recall. Hypnosis was rare until long after the 1961 Betty Hill abduction. Now, however, abductees are nearly always regressed, as are sighting witnesses on occasion. Yet with increasing numbers of non-regressed abductees now reported, those in a position to judge say that similar imagery and events emerge from witnesses’ narratives with or without hypnosis, demonstrating that the content of CE3 narratives does not originate in the hypnotic process.

Although hypnosis may be useful in many areas of CE3 research, veteran investigators know that not only does it not lead to God’s truth, it can turn into a sure pipeline to devilish self-deceit. There are several potential problems with both subject and hypnotist. If the latter is less than fully objective and perceptive, the session is probably biased from the start. And the subject can deliberately lie, believe his own lies, or otherwise confuse memories (or fantasies) with reality, and thus invalidate the regression — without either subject or hypnotist being aware. Something like this happened as far back as 1947, when an academic attempt to use hypnosis in a UFO investigation apparently resulted in fantasy exercises that, unwittingly, became the very first imaginary abduction narratives.

No regression can be considered 100% factual. Real and imaginary witnesses alike commonly adulterate their narratives in minor ways with several kinds of data, not all of which are under their conscious control: fantasies, hallucinatory and perinatal imagery, wrong-headed responses to questions, and personal memories. For example, during the examination segment of their abductions, one of our real abductees and an Imaginary subject each described a specific medical procedure (the taking of urine), which we found later they had each experienced in a hospital not long before. An investigator’s only way to prepare for such random and misleading data is by knowing as much as possible about a witness, including I suppose thorough medical and perhaps even psychological profiles! If that is impractical, then perhaps it is also unreasonable to expect perfectly accurate and objective regression narratives.

The hypnotist, the other partner in the relationship, can invalidate the session mainly by unconscious or deliberate cues and unwise or ambiguous questions. The worst cues may be unintended because they stem from unrecognized biases and presumptions. Easy examples here would be hypnotists with extremist positions, either as skeptics or proponents, who mistakenly see their own technique as balanced and scientific. More likely would be situations where bias would be subtle and subjective, and evident to the perpetrator only after persistent analytical discussions by a third party — if even then.

I believe our Imaginary Abductee regressions were professional, and entirely valid. Most of our volunteers were good hypnotic subjects, and McCall’s hypnosis techniques were superb. His method was to let each subject talk freely, with as few questions or prompts as possible, which lessened the risk of cueing. Yet he was remarkably sensitive to a narrative and knew when something had to be followed up. He taught me that regression data are most interesting and free from problems when the subject speaks in the present tense, the ongoing “now” perspective in which events are relived, rather than remembered. When the subject uses the past tense it means that he/she is remembering, and memory — under hypnosis or otherwise — is notoriously unreliable.

McCall also enlightened me about supposed alien-induced hypnotic “blocks” to a witness’ recall. We never had any blocked witnesses because blocks that are (allegedly) suggested by hypnosis can be removed by the same means. McCall also avoided witness hysteria, so dramatically evident in Dr. Simon’s temporary loss of control of Barney Hill during a regression. Except for very young or marginally disturbed subjects, and certain contexts such as rape or other violence, the hysteria of a subject or witness can (and should) be controlled by a competent hypnotist.

One technique McCall used was to “distance” nervous or frightened subjects by asking them to describe events as if they were watching a TV movie, or perhaps simply to “imagine” what was happening in their CE3. McCall’s repeated use of the imagination with witnesses in this way probably gave us the first inklings that led to our later development of the Imaginary Abductee experiments.

 

FIG. 1-10: NON-CUED RESPONSE BY S #8 (LN) with ENTITY SKETCH

KEY: 1=DETAILS 2=PATTERNS

1 | 2 |
--|---|MC: Now, imagine that you're seeing some entities, or beings.
--|---| Describe them as completely as you can.
3 | 3 |LN: They seem to be humanoid in form. They have round heads, 
3 | 3 | much larger than humans. It's as though they're checking out
5 | 2 | if I'm hostile or not. Their bodies are colored different 
4 | 2 | from their faces and hands. Maybe clothes. Their skin is 
4 | 2 | waxy, waxy yellow. They don't have any hair. They have kind of
4 | 2 | bumpy-like skin. Their faces seem kind of humanoid. But their 
7 | 0 | hands are the same waxy yellow, and have bumps on top. They 
3 | 2 | don't have fingers...seem kind of webbed. Yet I don't see
4 | 2 | definite projections, or fingers. Kind of bumps on the end of
5 | 1 | the hand. They don't have--I can't see any legs, or feet,
2 | 1 | because what looks like possibly an article of clothing goes
5 | 2 | right to the floor. Both of them are dressed alike. Costume is
5 | 1 | more purplish than blue in color.  Seems all one, all made
5 | 1 | in one piece. There are no seams on the costume.  Their eyes
7 | 2 | are very, very deep-set. Can't see eyes or pupils. May be a
6 | 2 | nose is in the middle of the face, but doesn't project from the
7 | 3 | face at all. And the mouths are round openings, without lips. 
7 | 2 | They have very short necks and very broad shoulders. They stand 
7 | 2 | about four feet, two inches tall. Maybe a little taller. They 
7 | 1 | They have no tools or weapons with them.  They're just walking   
5 | 2 | around me. The floor seems to be going down. Doesn't seem to  
6 | 1 | upset them. They're probably examining me as well as I'm 
2 | 0 | examining them.
113 39

THE IMAGINARY STUDY AND LEADING QUESTIONS Critics have asserted incorrectly that the Imaginary data were cued by leading questions. We certainly gave our sessions a structure and coherence that was typical of actual CE3s and yet sufficiently standardized to lend itself to replication. After all, we had to direct our subjects to say something! But we didn’t cue them for specifics: the representative CE3 pattern details, the perinatal parallels, and the idiosyncratic abduction events were theirs alone. In a typical passage (Figure 1-10), note that Dr. McCall merely asks a single question, which Imaginary subject #8 answers with an extended descriptive passage of 246 words, and also provides an entity sketch as well. In her passage I have counted 113 observational details and 39 CE3 image/event patterns — none of which can be said to result from cueing or other improper methodologies. Imaginary subject #8’s entity description was longer than most but still representative, and it shows clearly that the Imaginary subjects relied on their own powers of narrative invention. Where else could these incredible fantasized details have come from so fluently except from the innate imaginations of the subjects?

The Imaginary Abductee experiments were generally free from methodological flaws. I believe their scientific soundness is shown in part by the fact that, although the results puzzled us for many months, they led us finally away from dead-end speculations about aliens and toward testable psychological, perinatal, and other non-extraterrestrial perspectives.

PSI EFFECTS AND IMAGINARY CE3s I should add that category 6, “Possible PSI” data in the PTA procedure, is a useful analytical classification into which alleged witness observations or speculations on psychokinesis (PK), telepathy, and similar unusual data can be grouped. Validation of paranormal phenomena is not necessarily claimed. Early in the study, Imaginary abductees’ ability to describe unpublished and otherwise obscure pattern details of UFO lore puzzled us. We wondered, could paranormal processes be involved? Perhaps our subjects were reading our more informed minds for patterns and other abduction data. We tested this idea repeatedly, but evidence for paranormal events was ambiguous and fragmentary at best. I had no regrets when perinatal explanations for many of the patterns eventually surfaced. But the PSI category is a reasonable area for otherwise inexplicable observations and inferences that seem to occur frequently in CE3s.

V. ABDUCTION “ANALOGS” AND “IMAGE CONSTANTS”

 Both Imaginary and “real” CE3s show extensive parallels with an unusual group of mental phenomena, all of which are fantasy or hallucinatory events. They include shamans’ trances, spontaneous and drug-induced hallucinations (DHEs), near-death events (NDEs), out-of-body experiences (OBEs), Little People visitations, Christian visions, and the like. These experiences share so many qualities with abductions that I like to think of them as “abduction analogs” — though shaman specialists may well prefer to call CE3s a shamanism analog. All analogs and image constants are in part psychological phenomena, and their presence in CE3 narratives suggests still another way in which the CE3 experience is a non-physical, psychological event.

ABDUCTION ANALOGS IN MENTAL PHENOMENA Abduction analogs range from the clinically familiar to the occult, and include a variety of states of consciousness, from normal to the supposedly mystical or transcendent (often termed “transpersonal” in New Age-speak). Dr. McCall and I studied some of these with a hypnosis series modeled on the Imaginary experiments that compared data from real and imaginary DHEs, NDEs, and other analogs. Our sample was small, but results supported the view that imaginary and real analogs have common psychological qualities and origins.

Abduction analogs’ major similarities include comparable sequences of incidents, a “peak experience” intensity, and similar imagery — much of it birth-oriented. Figure 1-11 presents a detailed comparison between data from the full abduction sequence (i.e., most of the known steps reported in CE3 events, though no single case contains them all) and those from ten Imaginary/real analogs, in which the parallels are dramatically evident and the differences are very few. (I should identify them for clarity: these include imaginary or real DHEs, NDEs, OBEs, shamanism trances, Little People or fairy visitations, and Christian visions.)

A significant characteristic of all these abduction analogs is that their sequences of events typically progress toward increasingly intense levels of experience — as from bright lights to disturbing imagery, and finally to terrifying, ecstatic, or ineffable sensations. Any such sequence could help give a percipient the illusion that the event was a purposefully structured physical rather than psychological experience. Since some analogs approximate the emotional and metaphysical intensity of a spiritual rebirth, a religious vision, or other peak experience, they may produce long-term changes in a witness’ behavior. Such “reborn” aftermaths are particularly evident in witness reactions to NDEs and CE3s — one reason why witnesses often find them unforgettable.

Yet sequences in mental events have been connected with brain function rather than external stimuli. Researchers have found a drug that replicates the hysterical condition known as a panic attack (itself an analog) by triggering in subjects the same sequence of events every time. If sequences originate in brain chemistry or related processes they may need no external physical cause — more reason to believe that CE3s and all other analogs are non-physical events.

FIG. 1-11: THE ABDUCTION SEQUENCE (not necessarily exhaustive)

COMMON CE3 ABDUCTION IMAGES and EVENTS

LOSS OF CONTROL…

BRIGHT LIGHT or LIGHTS

LIFTED BY LIGHT (TUNNEL) (taken aboard through tube or tunnel)

STARRY SKIES, COSMIC VISTAS

IMAGE CONSTANTS (geometric, battlements, starbursts, etc.)

BIRTH IMAGERY/EVENTS: (not necessarily in a fixed sequence)

…BIG ROOM (relief after the pressure of vaginal birth)

…HUMMING, WOMB SOUNDS

…EXTREME TASTES, ODORS (common in Grof’s DHE birth memories)

…TUNNEL/TUBE IMAGERY (umbilical and placental)

…PHYSICAL AND/OR MORAL EXAM

…UMBILICAL PAIN

…BREATHING PROBLEMS

…HEAD, BODY PRESSURE

…PARALYSIS (body, legs, or sleep paralysis)

…CERVICAL DOORWAYS (opening from the center)

…WOMBLIKE ROOMS

…BODY, SIZE CHANGES (in Grof’s DHE difficult birth memories)

…LIFE REVIEW

…”MESSAGE” or SYMBOLIC BONDING OFFER (w/surrogate alien)

…BODY DISMEMBERMENT (after which, rebirth and renewed vigor)

…”BIRTH LAB” ROOM, EVENTS

…APOCALYPTIC EVENTS (in Grof’s DHE vaginal birth memories)

…AMNESIA, TIME LOSS

SEXUAL ACTIVITY

INEFFABILITY

TRANSCENDENT EMOTIONS

AFTERMATH

 

IMAGE CONSTANTS IN ABDUCTION ANALOGS All abduction analogs contain image constants, or recurrent shapes, colors, motions, and events described by subjects who have spontaneous or induced hallucinations. Because they appear in the artwork and cultural artifacts of societies the world over, image constants are thought of as universals or as archetypal.

Image constants take various forms: geometric (lattices, zigzags, battlements, etc.); spirals (tunnels and webs); and consistently bright and intense colors and lights. Types of motion include rotating, explosive, pulsing, and random. These and other event constants are obvious in witness sketches and descriptions from memory of UFOs.

Image constants relate to our discussion because they are familiar patterns in a broad range of psychological experiences, and may manifest themselves as illusions of intense nightlights, rapidly rotating discs, and especially as geometric surface designs. Witnesses may interpret rectangles or circles hallucinated on a bright light source as a UFO with windows or doors. Such a variety of image constants in report data make it probable that many UFO nightlight sightings and Close Encounters involve fantasies or hallucinatory witness responses.

Examples include the battlement, zigzag, and lattice patterns in Amerindian artifacts; the dreamy, floating perspectives in surrealist paintings; and the pulsating and explosive shapes and colors in art by schizophrenic patients. Some image constants are perinatal — tubes, tunnels, doorways, and a variety of other birth-related images are frequently described in fantasy genres.

Psychologist Ron Siegel, though, links some image constants not with archetypes but — prosaically enough — with the anatomy of the human eyeball. He cites many parallels between image constants and phosphenes (visual sensations caused by pressure on the eyeball). Siegel also asserts that during appropriate conditions (such as hallucinations or mental stress) the retina may stimulate visual impressions of its own inner structure, which the brain then interprets as one or another image constant. Thus lattices, battlements, and similar geometric patterns may originate in the neat array of tiny rods and cones on the retinal surface; and tunnels, webs, and spirals may reflect the funnel-shaped rear area where the optic nerve exits.

All this suggests that there may be more than a single origin for some images in CE3s and other abduction analogs. It also implies still again that the possible sources for image constants and their effects are not extraterrestrial but mundane or Earthly.

TUBE AND TUNNEL IMAGERY IN ANALOGS Tunnels and tubes, which are among the most common image constants in CE3s and abduction analogs, relate directly to perinatal (i.e., before, during, and after natal) events, and will be discussed only briefly here. Abductees often describe beams of light of various sizes as tubes or tunnels of light. Large lighted tunnels sometimes levitate witnesses aboard a UFO, while a tiny tubelike version may be used by aliens as a body probe.

The large tunnel/tubes have obvious analogies to the vaginal tunnel. We have noted that boarding a UFO is often akin to birth; the abductee is in effect “reborn” inside the craft, in one part of a complex series of perinatal/CE3 events. For example, these transporting body-sized tunnels were described during boarding by three Imaginary abductees (see below), modifying the old familiar Star Trek refrain to “Birth me up, Scotty!” 

IMAGINARY SUBJECT #1: A long tube came out of (the UFO), and it was about two feet above me… And this long cylinder-like tube came down. It was gray and…was like all colored lights inside of it…I seem to be floating for a second, and – then I was inside…. 

IMAGINARY SUBJECT #3: …gentle suction…it just sort of drew me up into it, sort of through the bottom…like some sort of tunnel of air and light, drawing me up inside of it…I’m inside of a tube when I first come in…. 

IMAGINARY SUBJECT #4: I was pulled in…a particle of dust into a vacuum cleaner. I mean, I’m just suddenly there…

Abduction analog percipients have experiences that are often nearly identical, as in these descriptions of three large cylindrical tube chambers in an Imaginary and a real CE3, and a DHE. The brain responds similarly to three different situational stimuli. Here each witness fantasized lying on the bottom of a huge perinatal tunnel/tube structure, facing upward: 

IMAGINARY CE3

• They seem to have… brought me to this…it almost seems like a tube. The ceiling is about 20 feet high. And I seem to be about three feet from the floor.-(Imaginary Subject #8)

“REAL” CE3

• I can see sky up there! …I’m looking up through rocks!… It’s a volcano, maybe…. Like a long tube…jagged….-(Witness in Kentucky CE3, 1976 )

DHE SUBJECT

• It’s sort of like a tube, like I sort of feel… that I’m at the bottom of a tube looking up….You can see the [screens] and imagery converging with a point in the center.-(from Ronald K. Siegel)

DRUG-INDUCED HALLUCINATIONS (DHEs) Drug-induced hallucinations have long been studied by researchers into hallucinogenic imagery and related psychological processes. Parallels between drug-induced hallucinations and UFO abduction narratives are extensive. (The perinatal DHE research by psychologist Stanislav Grof will be discussed in Section 2.)

One of the most conclusive DHE/CE3 parallels is described in the step “Lifted by light,” on the abduction sequence, when the witness becomes part of the imagery of the experience. The subject, like an abductee, at some point suddenly changes from an observer to a participant and is overwhelmed by, surrenders consciousness to, or is “abducted” by his own hallucinatory imagery. This obvious CE3-like event echoes other analogs’ abduction motifs as well, such as the floating out of body that normally initiates NDEs and OBEs, and the shamans’ “floating skyward” in trance (see below). Another interesting CE3/DHE parallel includes “big rooms,” often huge, high-domed circular halls that are a regular part of both real and Imaginary CE3 narratives. High-domed big rooms with surrounding windows-looking a lot like the interior of a typical UFO-was described by a DHE subject after ingesting a psychoactive stimulant.

Other parallels: DHE tube/tunnels manifest themselves as retracting tubes of light, or as lighted pillars which transport the percipient. DHE geometric and spiral imagery includes lattices, battlements, webs, and rotating and explosive forms. Psychologist Ron Siegel has shown that hallucinations accompanying painful migraine headaches produce many of these same constants-unquestionable evidence of a common psychological origin.

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES (NDEs) Near-death events, probably the most widely familiar abduction analog, are apparent episodes of temporary clinical death suffered by persons during traumatic accidents or operations before their resuscitation or return to consciousness. As with hallucinations, NDE imagery and incidents show many similarities to CE3s. Kenneth Ring in his The Omega Project (1992) confirms our views by citing numerous and extensive CE3/NDE parallels, although he does not dwell on other analogs. The evidence for NDEs is anecdotal instead of physical, and in that respect is like the bulk of CE3 and other analog evidence.

The NDE’s explicit involvement with an otherworld journey (an out-of-body “trip” to another realm, including contact with “alien” beings) gives it direct correspondence with CE3s. In both experiences, witnesses and entities float rather than walk; there is a TV screen “life review.” NDE tunnels lead to a border (i.e., to a doorway or passageway) where a brightly illuminated exotic being may deliver a moralistic message; and the aftermath of each analog is similarly emotional (i.e., disturbing or rewarding) for the participant. For whatever reasons, a near-death experience seems to have a more marked effect on the witness than do most other analogs. Although NDE percipients have no more proof of the event’s physical reality than abductees, they seem to “know” they have undergone a real but often indescribably strange or mystical event. Typically they report seeing dead relatives in a divinely serene location just beyond a boundary — for them the literal borderline between life and death — from which they reluctantly return before regaining consciousness.

NDE percipients who are on an unwitting spiritual quest may suddenly undergo a dramatic change of personality or personal goals. Some suddenly adopt a particular religious creed and a transcendent belief in life after death, a belief system they feel was confirmed by their apparent visit to heavenly realms.

“LITTLE PEOPLE” ENCOUNTERS One of the richest sources of pre-1947 abduction lore is furnished by British, Celtic, and Scotch-Irish tales of “Little People” encounters (from the 4^th century onward). This immensely diverse and abundant tradition contains many abduction parallels, among them bright lights, levitation, disappearing doors, some of the biggest big rooms (since the Little People supposedly conducted their activities mostly in underground caverns), and frequently a potent aftermath as well. Little People tales contain such perinatal patterns as fetal entities, changelings, a vast number of tunnel/tubes, and a rich mix of other birth imagery. As Fig. 1-12 shows, many Little People distinctly resemble a human fetus. Note the fetal appearance of brownies (i.e., pixies, leprechauns, elves, and many other similar creatures), including the diminutive stature, frail body, large head, ambiguous gender, skintight apparel, etc.

The picture provided shows brownies on their perinatally symbolic fairy mound, a dome or burrow of earth, during supposed nighttime orgies. (The fireworks are symbolic of orgiastic activities.) Unwary humans who joined the Little People’s revelries were believed to risk being charmed away and so lost forever. We derive the term “pixilated” — pixy-led or mentally confused — from such lore. Fairy mounds reportedly could appear suddenly in open fields at night. They were remarkably like alleged UFOs: sometimes they raised up on beams of light and hovered over the ground; or occasionally an intense lightbeam streamed from an open door that led underground. For the unwary ones that entered, it was like an abduction, but all done below ground, and with magical powers aplenty.

While many traditional elves, pixies, and other creatures have retained their fetal appearance, which links them to perinatal memories, other Scotch-Irish Little People have kept their diminutive stature but lost most other physical analogies with the fetal humanoid type. To judge by physical descriptions and illustrations from about the seventeenth century on, most Little People have an endearing ugliness manifested by very pronounced facial features, unlike the underdeveloped features of “grays.” They have acquired a picturesque quality and almost realistic solidity, but they have lost the ethereal fetal/fairy qualities that survive in elves. These departures from a presumed fetal ideal can be observed in scores of Little People in cultures worldwide. Thomas Bullard’s otherwise uneven study of abductions, “UFO Abductions: Measure of a Mystery” (1989), has a remarkably extensive listing of such groups of “Little” beings in cultures worldwide.

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Executive Summary

In 1977, Dr. Alvin Lawson and Dr. W. C. McCall conducted a controlled study where 16 volunteers, unfamiliar with UFO lore, were hypnotized and asked to imagine a UFO abduction. The results were revolutionary: the “imaginary” narratives contained the same high-strangeness elements found in “real” cases, including passing through solid matter, fetal-like humanoids, and medical examinations. Lawson concludes that both “real” and “imaginary” abductees are tapping into the same mental matrix—specifically perinatal (birth) memories.

The study suggests that the “missing time” and traumatic imagery of abductions are actually “emotional memories” preserved in the amygdala from the process of birth. The tunnel of light, the large-headed “entities,” and the feeling of being “probed” are interpreted as symbolic replays of the neonatal experience. This research provides a scientific rationale for viewing Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3) as psychological, mundane events rather than extraterrestrial encounters.

“How can the hypothesis of an objective abduction survive if anyone can tell the abduction story, no experience required? The difference between an imaginary and a ‘real’ abductee is this: both have lived out a fantasy, but only one can be certain they have not been deluded.”

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