A proposito della nuova moda che sta arrivando in Italia dei

"rapiti dagli UFO", e del nuovo film "Bagliori nel Buio" (la

storia di Travis Walton, di cui si parla anche qui) forniamo

alla riflessione dei nostri utenti....

Hypnosis and Alien Abduction (in inglese...)

============================== da "They Call It Hypnosis" di

Robert A. Baker, Prometheus Book, 1990 - pp.237-242.

Since the famous abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill,

immortalized by John Fuller in his sensational "The Interrupted

Journey" (1966), with an introduction by the Hills' hypnotist,

Dr. Benjamin Simon, regressive hypnosis has been the method of

choice both for getting at the details of the abduction and for

establishing the abduction's authenticity. This is, of course,

one of the worst if not the worst misuse of so-called hypnosis.

The Hill case was one of the first abductions to gain worldwide

publicity and it was one of the first to use hypnotic

regression. To summarize the case, it seems that the Hills, who

had been taking a holiday in Canada, started back home in their

automobile to New Hampshire. As they passed near the town of

Lancaster, Betty noticed a light the sky. She called her

husband's attention to this light, which was soon joined by

another. As they watched these lights, one of them disappeared

and the other began to follow their car. After they stopped

their car and Betty looked at the light through her binoculars.

She saw that it emanated from a large craft or vehicle in the

sky. Barney got out and walked to the vehicle, which had dropped

down to tree level. When Barney looked at it through the

binoculars he thought he saw a dozen or so people looking back

at him from the vehicle. At this point, Barney panicked and ran

back to Betty and the car, they drove off down the road. Shortly

thereafter, they heard a beeping sound and they felt very tired.

When they reached home, the Hills recalled that they were about

two hours later than they should have been. The following

morning Betty called her sister, who suggested that they may

have "irradiated" by the UFO. This fear prompted Betty to go the

local library and find the book "The Flying Saucer Cospiracy" by

Donald Keyhoe, a confirmed believer that "UFOs are from outer

space." A week after their adventure, Betty wrote a letter to a

national UFO organization describing their UFO sighting, but she

made no mention of any abduction. Several days later Betty had a

nightmare in which she dreamed that she and Barney had been

abducted and taken aboard a flying saucer. According to Betty,

she was given an extensive physical exam by the UFO occupants,

who seemed particularly interested in her reproductive system.

After receiving Betty's letter, the national UFO organization

sent some of their investigators around to interview the Hills.

The interviewers asked the Hills about the missing two hours. A

few weeks later, Barney visited a physician for ulcers and

hypertension. The physician recommended that Barney see a

psychiatrist. The psychiatrist recommended that Barney contact

Dr. Benjamin Simon, who practiced regressive hypnosis. Betty

accompanied Barney on his first visit because in the meantime

she had several abduction dreams. Dr. Simon was surprised to see

Betty as well as Barney, but he quickly realized that Betty

needed help as well. Under regressive hypnosis, Dr. Simon found

that the Hills had, indeed, seen a bright star-like object, and

had been frightened because it seemed like it was following

them. Dr. Simon quickly recognìzed, though, that the abduction

tale was only a fantasy. Although Betty and Barney agreed about

the trip down from Montreal, they did not agree on details about

the alleged abduction, and it became obvious to Dr. Simon that

the so-called abduction was not a shared experience. In Fuller's

book, this aspect of the case was not emphasìzed. Neither was

the fact that more than two years had elapsed between the time

of the UFO encounter and the sessions with Dr. Simon. When Dr.

Simon had Betty bring in notes she had made about her nightmares

at the time of the nightmares and compared these with the tale

she told under regressive hypnosis, he found that the two were

essentially identical. There were irrational inconsistencies in

both the abduction story and the notes about her dreams. Dr.

Simon has stated, on several occasions, that he does not believe

that the Hills were abducted and taken aboard a UFO, but rather,

that Betty Hill's memories of the alleged abduction were based

solely upon her dreams. Unfortunately, some of the people she

told about her dreams suggested to her that her dreams must have

been based upon events that actually happened. The truth of the

matter seems to be that her dreams were based upon the UFO

material supplied by the investigators and the books she had

read. Although Barney's recall under hypnotic regression was

corroborative in some ways, it must be remembered that Betty had

told him over and over for more than two years the content of

her dreams. The Hill case is important because it contained all

the main components of future abduction claims: missing time,

spatial dislocations, physical isolation from the rest of the

world during the event, physical examination inside the UFO, and

interest of the aliens in the earthlings' reproducrive system.

All of these show up time and again in cases of alleged

abduction revealed through hypnotic regression. Following the

Hill case, reports of UFO abductions began to proliferate. In

October 1973, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker of Pascagoula,

Mississippi, reported they had been abducted and taken aboard a

flying saucer for a superficial physical examination. According

to them, their abductors were short, grey men with wrinkled

skin, and rather than walking, they "floated." UFO experts,

after interviewing Hickson and Parker, concluded that they were

telling the truth. Claims were even made that Hickson

successfully passed a lie detector test supporting his abduction

story. A more rigorous investigarion by Philip J. Klass (1989)

discovered that the case was a hoax, that the lie detector test

was flawed, and the abduction a "put-up job" to make money.

Following the 1975 NBC television prime time movie "The UFO

Incident," telling the story of Betty and Barney Hill, numerous

other claims of abductions were made, including the notorious

Travis Walton case. In this case, a group of woodcutters in one

of the Arizona national forests was cutting wood when all of a

sudden a hovering UFO "zapped" young Walton, one of the workers,

and he disappeared. Five days later, Walton reappeared and told

of being taken aboard a spaceship and given a physical exam.

This case was unique in that there were multiple witnesses and a

report to the authorities that was made while the abductee was

still missing. There were, however, some discordant elements.

First, the abduction occurred only two weeks after the NBC

telecast. Second, Walton's older brother Duane assured everyone

Travis wasn't even missing. And third, all of the Waltons were

UFO buffs, and Travis had told his mother well before the

incident that if he were ever abducted she shouldn't worry.

Subsequent investigation by Klass again uncovered a monetary

motive behind this hoax (Klass 1989). In the spring of 1979,

one of the most incredible UFO abduction stories of all time

appeared in a book titled "The Andreasson Affair: The Documented

Investigation of a Woman's Abduction Aboard a UFO", authored by

Raymond Fowler, an experienced UFOlogist. According to Mrs.

Andreasson, a Massachusetts mother of seven, in January 1967,

only a few months after the Hill abduction gained international

attention, she too was abducted. However, it was not until 1974

-seven years later- that she decided to go public and attempt to

collect the $100,000 prize offered by the tabloid "National

Enquirer" for convincing evidence of extraterrestrial visitors.

Despite the story she told under regressive hypnosis

administered during fourteen separate sessions by one Harold

Edelstein, she never collected the prize money. Even Fowler

himself had some doubts about some of the bizarre details of

Mrs. Andreasson's story. Since none of the details about the

strange beings without heads and her visit to another world

could possibly be verified, it seems clear that it is another

excellent example of the imaginative skill of someone who is

fantasy-prone. The abduction phenomena reached its peak perhaps

during the middle and later 1980s, when a number of claims were

reported from all over the planet of numerous UFO contacts and

abductions by aliens. In the wake of these claims came another

phenomenon: the hypnotic-regression guru, an untrained,

nonprofessional, amateur hypnotist specializing in contacting

alleged abductees and eliciting strange and spectacular tales of

abductions, examination, molestation, impregnation and surgical

implantation. Typical of such gurus is Budd Hopkins, an artist

by profession, who abandoned his trade for the more lucrative

work of UFO-abduction propagandist. In his first book on UFO

abductions, "Missing Time" (1981), Hopkins describes the

adventures of some thirty-seven people from all walks of life

who underwent a "missing time" experience and then later, under

Hopkins' hypnotic ministrations, reported a classic UFO

abduction fantasy quite similar to that of Betty and Barney

Hill. Hopkins focuses on nineteen individuals, all of whom had

body scars, missing time, and memories of alien faces. He

stresses that all of the nineteen are normal, and even raises

the possibility that their reports of alien abductions might be

delusional. All such doubts as to the validity of such

abductions were, however, quickly erased when Hopkins followed

up his first book with a second one called "Intruders: The

Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods" (1987), in which he

discovered the motive behind the abductions! It is, incredibly,

that the aliens are carrying extraterrestrial genetic experiment

in which earthlings are unknowing and unwilling partecipants!

Narly all of Hopkins's evidence is gathered from alleged victims

who have sought him out in the hope that he can explain away

their "missing time" or "UFO contact" experiences. With these

initial expectations and Hopkins's "hypnotic style", it would be

remarkable indeed if anything other than an abduction experience

emerged. The ABC program "20/20" on May 21, 1987, devoted a

segment to UFO abductions. Hopkins was interviewed along with a

number of other believers. The show also interviewed one

skeptic, Dr. Martin Reiser, a psychologist and hypnosis

consultant for the Los Angeles Police Department. After wiewing

videotapes of Hopkins interviewing a subject under hypnosis

Reiser concluded that Hopkins was telling the subjects ahead of

time that abductions happen, that they are very common, and that

there is no question that the alien abductors do exist.

Hopkins's response was, "Well, these cases are so outrageous and

the person feels so uncomfortable talking about them that,

unless you assure that person by your manner that you believe

them, you will not get the story." Reiser responded, "I think

much of what was felt and perceived by these two subjects could

be explained in rational, reasonable ways that don't have to

involve UFOs or UFO experiences." Hopkins has been out-gurued

within the last few years by Whitley Strieber, the occult

novelist, whose book "Communion: A True Story" (1987) was on the

New York Times Best-seller list for nearly a year, and made his

publisher, Beech Tree Books/Morrow, a fortune and made Strieber

an international celebrity. The book is highly autobiographical

and gives an account of Strieber's early life, when he had a

number of experiences that he was able, at a much later time, to

relate to contacts with extraterrestrials. Some of this highly

autobiographical material was recovered under hypnosis and is,

therefore, highly suspect. Nevertheless, Strieber describes a

number of "missing time" episodes, conversations with voices

coming through his stereo and out-of-the-body experiences.

Things come to a head one night in October 1985, when Strieber

is his isolated cabin in upstate New York with his wife and son

and another couple. After everyone is asleep, Strieber awakens

and sees a blue light on the cathedral ceiling of the living

room. He thinks the house is afire. Though afraid and almost in

a state of panic, he goes back to sleep! He is awakened again by

a sharp loud noise like a firecracker. His wife and the guests

also hear it and awaken, and the house is surrounded by a

glowing light. Strieber goes downstairs then and the light

disappears. He comforts his son and his guests and all go back

to sleep. Later, under hypnosis, Strieber remembers being

visited during the night by a little man with a hood but no

head. Three months later, on the day after Christmas, Strieber

and his wife are again in the cabin. After shutting up the

cabin, setting the alarm system and checking the place

thoroughly, he falls asleep. Next, he is suddenly awakened by a

whooshing noise from downstairs. He checks the alarm system, but

there is no indication that there has been any intrusion. Then

he sees the bedroom door open, and a small figure about

three-and-a-half-feet tall is staring at him. Then he is

paralyzed and is floated out of the house into the woods and

then into an alien spacecraft. He is shown a needle and thinks

it is put into his brain. Then he feels he is being raped

anally. Later, under hypnosis, he recalls more details of the

experience. Later still, he has another "missing time"

experience and several visit from little "dwarf-like " beings.

Strieber then starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Klein,

who uses regressive hypnosis, and after a number of hypnotic

sessions concludes "I have examined Whitley Strieber and found

that he is not suffering from a psychosis. He appears to me to

have adapted very well to life at a high level of uncertainty.

He is not hallucinating in a manner characteristic of

psychosis." Dr. Klein also wrote that many of Strieber's

symptoms were consistent with temporal lobe abnormality, thus

raising the question of possible organic brain disease.

Subsequent EEG tests, however, revealed no abnormalities.

Strieber also took a lie detector test and this test indicated

that he honestly thought he perceived the things reported in the

book. ---------------------

In un altro file "UFO abduction Demystified" : su ipnosi,

personalita' portate alla fantasia, allucinazioni ipnagogiche,

tempo mancante ecc.