Magonia 35, January 1990
As editor of Artifex, like most editors, I have become something of a clearinghouse for gossip, rumour, and inside information about all sorts of things relating to anomalies, witnesses, and those who investigate them. In regard to the extraterrestrial abduction scene and those involved, I have heard many impressive anecdotes from very reliable sources that have led me to regard many of the abductionist claims and claimants as highly suspect. - Item: Reliable. Source (RS) and Well-Known Abductionist (WKA) went to investigate the report by members of a family that they had seen “aliens in yellow space suits on the road.” There were “several flashing lights.” It was rainy and misty. RS checked on this by calling the county highway department to see if they had any people out at that place and time. Sure enough, a crew had been doing emergency roadwork. They had several Caution signs with them and were wearing the traditional yellow slickers due to the wet weather. RS passed this information on to WKA, who categorically refused to accept the explanation.
- Item: RS (with Ph.D. in psychology) witnessed one of WKA’s hypnotic regressions for the purpose of confirming an abduction experience. It was clear to RS that WKA was recursively leading the subject, subtly suing him according to a predetermined programme, which WKA had written out on a notepad held in his hand.
- Item: RS told me of a case of a New York woman who became extremely upset over WKA’s attempts to coerce her into believing that she had been kidnapped by aliens when she knew better; she was so upset, in fact, that she flew out to California to see a recommended therapist in order to recover from what amounted to a brain-washing experience.
This particular case, as well as the one just above it, is highly relevant to the issue of who really “homogenizes” the reports of the abduction experience. In spite of claims that these reports – coming directly from the victim – are essentially identical, we have this only on the word of the abductionists. As far as I know, no proof of this exists.
The purpose in bringing these anecdotes to the reader’s attention is to indicate that the level of reliability of American researchers in these areas might not be as high as Bullard implies. In relation to some of these items, Bullard’s invocation of Hufford’s important book [1] and its conclusions seems inappropriate – unless he wishes to apply its lessons to the abductionists themselves. I see little reason to believe that the abductees are “taken at their word” by the abductionists, or that the abductionists are giving us the pure, untouched reports of their subjects. A moderately close reading of Hopkins’ Missing Time and Intruders reveals that the subjects very often try to indicate that their experiences had a dreamlike or imaginary quality.
This is always glossed over or reinterpreted. Jungian explanations for the alleged similarities among the abduction reports depend on the reliability of what we are told by the investigators. I no longer believe that what is claimed by the investigators is reliable, therefore the similarities can probably be accounted for by a much more parsimonious explanation: the similarities are merely an artifact of the Procrustean techniques being used by the abductionists. In addition, much is made of the claim that typical abduction reports have been obtained by individuals not subjected to regressive hypnosis. For some reason, which is not at all immediately obvious to me, this is supposed to be proof of the objectivity of the experience. I am afraid that the significance of this claim needs to be spelt out more clearly.
The as yet ill-defined altered state of consciousness obtained by means of formal hypnotic induction is but one of several altered states available to the individual on his own. Autohypnosis, as well as altered states induced by more or less chance interactions with the environment, must be considered. The entire psychological history of the individual must also be taken into account.
- Item: WKA has said to a number of people that he is “on a mission,” and that the abduction problem “is why I’m here.” Actually, having watched him say this myself, he really says it to no one; he sort of gazes upward with unfocused eyes as he says it. Item: I told a Well-Known Skeptic (not specifically a UFO sceptic) that I had heard no reports of abduction cases from any of my paediatrician friends. It seemed to me unlikely that these professionals would not have heard of abduction cases if they are of the ubiquity claimed by the abductionists. WKS said “It’s a cover-up!”
I know a number of paediatricians pretty well. They are sensitive, imaginative people who listen sympathetically to what children have to say, no matter how bizarre the story might be. Paediatricians frequently deal with the wild tales of children and use the imaginative content as part of therapy. It is unlikely that a paediatrician would take a story of alien abduction at face value. They would, however, not suppress such material.
- Item: WKA (who is not a professional psychologist or counsellor) cautions victims about whether or not they should have children (due to the genetic experiments done on them by aliens), or whether they might not have to terminate intimate relationships because their ‘significant other’ “will not be able to understand the experience.” Aside from the prosaic fact that such counselling by unlicensed persons is illegal, unethical, and irresponsible, these abductionist recommendations are highly reminiscent of suggestions made by cult leaders to their recruits.
- Item: In the little-known ET Bag Lunch Case, Well-Known MJ-12 person finds mysterious items that he is sure resulted from the visitation of an alien spacecraft. Having access to a UFO-buff high up in the administration of an aerospace corporation, he manages to have their laboratories do an analysis. The items turn out to be aluminium shavings, an old insulator, and part of a brown paper bag.
- Item: Long before William L. Moore debunked himself at the 1989 MUFON meeting in Las Vegas, he got off to a strong head start, in 1972, by publishing, in consultation with Charles Berlitz, the perfectly fantastical book The Philadelphia Experiment. [2] This book speculates that, during the war, the U.S. Navy was in possession of some sort of relativistic electromagnetic device that would not only render an entire ship and its crew invisible, but teleport it to a distant location as well! Ufologists who have been reminded of the fact of this book have looked at Moore’s claims and reliability through new eyes. (The prominent biophysicist Otto Schmitt was heavily involved in electromagnetic experimentation with the navy during World War II. He has some 60 patents in this area, many of which are still classified. When I mentioned the Philadelphia Experiment to him he claimed [between chuckles and head-shaking] that he had never heard of such a thing, even by way of rumour. For various good reasons, I do not think he was hiding anything. Conspiracy buffs will, of course, think otherwise.)
The above items, in combination with the unwarranted enthusiasm among some American ufologists for the moribund MJ-12 and Gulf Breeze cases seem, in my opinion, to justify European ufologists’ dismay at the current condition of American ufology.
Along these lines, I also do not completely share Bullard’s characterisation of European ufology vis-à-vis American ufology. Bullard claims that Americans “work from – the bottom up, wallowing in facts, often content just to accumulate and enumerate them.” They are often “satisfied to cobble together a few unsystematic generalisations and prefer to isolate phenomena rather than relate them.” On the other hand, European ufologists work from the top down, conforming data to theory. With regard to Europeans, I tend to regard this as somewhat true; however, the recent work of Hilary Evans [3] and Terence Meaden [4] – of singular importance to current ufology – do nothing of the sort. [5]
Persistent objections from sceptics are met
with the response that the sceptic is an
‘armchair ufologist’, yet nothing is presented
that is the least inducement to get out
of one’s armchair
..........................
Both of these investigators proceed by way of gathering data, constructing models, and then allowing fresh data to strengthen or modify their hypotheses. In the case of American ufology, it is hard to see in what way the ETH, which dominates American UFO thinking, is not a ‘top down’ approach. The ‘top down’ approach is also characteristic of the abductionist method. It also characterises recent American books on abductions that dismiss objections based on the problems of hypnosis, folkloric and mythological parallels, science fiction sources, and psychology, with a mere snort and a wave of the hand. Such objections are never raised by the abductionists themselves in their strongest possible form and then systematically refuted. They are scarcely raised at all. One is instead requested to accept the abductionists’ word that such objections are utterly irrelevant. Persistent objections from sceptics are met with the response that the sceptic is an ‘armchair ufologist’, yet nothing is presented that is the least inducement to get out of one’s armchair.
Budd Hopkins’ paper on ‘stewpot thinking’ [6] which Bullard cites, is an undistinguished and poorly thought-out critique of the use of traditional comparative methods (dismissed as ‘stewpot thinking’) in elucidating UFO and ET cases. Hopkins’ fundamental error in this paper is to compare problem-solving within a paradigm (discovering the source and cause of Legionnaires’ Disease) with problem-solving, where no paradigm exists (ufology). In the former case, one has a well-established and agreed-upon methodology; controversy may revolve around details, but the investigators pretty much all agree on the direction that solution of the problem will take. ‘Stewpot thinking’, in this case, might be inappropriate, but not always. Very often, the ‘stewpot’ thinker, seeing both the trees and the forest, perceives relationships unnoticed by his more linearly thinking colleagues. In nascent science, such as the development of electrical theory in the 18th century, analogies and comparisons with earlier models (hydrodynamics and alchemy were favourites) often prevail until the paradigm is established. It is in no way extraordinary or defective to lay the groundwork for clarifying and understanding a problem by using ‘stewpot thinking’.
Actually, the most important aspect of Hopkins’ essay is that it palingenetically models one of the first steps a cult or religion takes after it becomes established: it denies its relationship to any past religion. The Church Fathers were at pains to deny any relationship between Christianity and the Egyptian religion, but even the Church Fathers had a hard time maintaining this position and finally developed the theory that the Devil had caused other cultures to mimic Christianity in order to undermine the faith. Because of Hopkins’ remarkable recreation of this theological pattern, I strongly recommend that his paper be read.
Bullard’s arguments often seem to undercut his own discipline. As he says, “if the only evidence is a text, fiction counterfeits truth to perfection.” This may be so on occasion, but as a matter of fact, fiction rarely counterfeits truth to perfection, or to anything approaching it. We may not be able to provide an absolute, definitive proof that the story of Little Red Riding Hood is fiction, but there are several criteria of comparative method, long used in textual analysis and literature studies, that may be applied internally to any text that will lead us to regard it as either true, partly true, or mainly fictional. I do not understand what Bullard could mean here, and I sincerely hope that I have misread him. He appears to be making an unjustifiably strong statement that can be true only in the most absolutist sense.
One of the very best criteria for distinguishing between fact and fiction in abduction reports (as in many other kinds of anomalies reports) is the criterion of “information richness.” Let me give you a homely example. A drunk of no great intelligence, teetering on a bar stool, leans over to his buddy and grumbles, “If Tommy Kramer hadn’t busted his knee, we could all be going to the Super Bowl.” If this were overheard by a Martian, he would obtain, in this one sentence, (1) immediate, useful information about the nature of human beings and (2) a number of puzzles that would motivate further investigations, which might lead to additional real information.
The Martian would at least know, or soon be able to know, that a ‘Tommy Kramer’ had something called ‘knees,’ that they get broken, and that circumstances surrounding the physical condition of a ‘Tommy Kramer’ determines whether or not these humans will all go somewhere called ‘Super Bowl’. This level of information richness – and this is a pretty minimal example in human terms – is not to be obtained from ET contact. Nor is much ordinary information about contemporary human life obtained from myth and folklore which, like ET contact reports, tend to have an abstract, formalistic, and timeless character.
It is extraordinary that Bullard, as a folklorist, should fall prey to expressing such a concretism as, “In comparing folklore and abductions, many features fit but at the same time many do not. … Fairies do not fly spaceships or use eye-like scanning devices.” Don’t they? Representations and reports exist in which creatures, not fairies, perhaps, but certainly, creatures very similar to one or another variety of the ‘Little People’ do fly spaceships. [7] And eye-like scanning devices can be traced back a very long time indeed. They have significant representation in early myth and folklore, and have been used by mythical entities for ‘scanning’. [8]
I fully agree with Bullard that merely pointing out mythological or folkloric parallels does not prove that – very strictly speaking – something didn’t really happen. And if a single parallel were the only criterion for distinguishing fact from fiction, we would have great difficulties in certain cases. For instance, the tale of the flight of Mary and Joseph into Egypt with the infant Jesus could well be true, and it is almost a certainty that many ordinary families of three have had to make similar perilous journeys. Yet we also know that the traditional details surrounding Jesus’ birth and childhood closely parallel the circumstances surrounding the birth of many mythological or semi-mythological heroes. Thus one archetypal motif – the flight to avoid persecution by the representatives of the old order – is brought into connection with another theme: the birth of the hero. [9]
The ‘success’ of the rationalisations of the ETHers derives from the fact that once an arbitrary will behind a phenomenon is assumed, anything can count as evidence
Other folkloric themes and motifs may be assembled around a story, each severely reducing the probability of the story being a true and literal account of an historical event. From pursuing this exercise, we can even come up with why such stories are structured the way they are. (Needless to say – I would hope! – such themes and motifs abound in the abduction material.) Furthermore, comparative material having the very same motifs may even be obtained from the dreams of modern people. And if such motifs are the persistent stuff of dreams, I would suggest that they do not deal with matters of objective external reality. There are several other relevant tests for distinguishing real reports from mythic and folkloric confabulations. Bullard is blowing smoke from Freud’s real, cigar here.
At bottom, the ‘success’ of the rationalisations of the ETHers derives from the fact that once an arbitrary will behind a phenomenon is assumed, anything can count as evidence. This, combined with what Norman Mailer once referred to as “a logic that doesn’t know where to stop,” takes the ETHer wherever he wants to go. The ETH is extremely difficult to falsify, making it a fertile breeding ground for every sort of fantasy. The knowledge vacuum we confront in contemplating ETs and UFOs stimulates the imagination into providing ‘answers’ derived from psychological and cultural sources. If the imagery has a strong archetypal component, it will be driven by energies that arise from the very roots from which myth and folklore grow. The unconscious always tends to personify its contents and express the psychodynamics involved in dramatic form.
In closing, I would like to address the specific criticisms made against me by Bullard. First of all, I have never articulated to myself, much less published, a comprehensive Jungian theory of UFOs and ETs. I doubt very much that it could be done. The attempts I have seen have been virtually complete failures. I merely believe that there are certain aspects of UFO reports that lend themselves readily to Jungian treatment. Even if the ETH turned out to be true, this would not invalidate a Jungian approach to certain aspects of the subject. Human psychology is, after all, involved.
Contrary to Bullard’s hopes or fears, I do not have any fundamental ‘answers,’ and I have never claimed to have any – nor do I know where Bullard got the idea that I did. Jung, not I, first asserted that the world was in such dreadful shape [10] that a salvation myth, such as the one developed from extraterrestrial beliefs, was needed. I would, however, second his opinion. Nor am I the originator of the idea that there might be a parapsychological component to the UFO and its associated physical evidence. This idea has been entertained by, among others, Jung, Ivan Grattan-Guinness, Manfred Cassirer, Michael Grosso, Peter Rojcewicz, George Owen, and last, but not least, Jerome Clark. Clark, who now wishes to distance himself from his book on the Jungian/parapsychological explanation of UFOs and UFO reports, is one of only two people I know of who has attempted to put forward such an interpretation in a full-length book. [11]
The First Law of Paraufology is that the UFO mystery is primarily subjective and its content primarily symbolic
................................................................
Not only did Clark write an entire 272-page volume in this vein, but in the course of the work (in addition to putting forward a vigorous defence of the reality of the Cottingley Fairies) he formulated actual 'Laws of Paraufology.' The First Law of Paraufology is: The UFO mystery is primarily subjective and its content primarily symbolic; the Second Law is that the ‘objective’ manifestations are psychokinetically generated by-products of those unconscious processes which shape a culture’s vision of the otherworld. Existing only temporarily, they are at best only quasi-physical. [12] Laws, no less!
Now, I appreciate the fact that Clark has disavowed this book, although I believe that this was due mainly to his intuition that its superficial and formulaic use of Jungian ideas for an understanding of UFOs was weak and unsatisfactory. But the point I really want to make is that, if Bullard wants to critique a substantial statement of the Jungian/parapsychological interpretation, why doesn’t he take aim at Clark’s book, rather than at the few very sketchy and tentative remarks I made in the Magonia article? Never mind that Clark no longer believes in what he wrote in The Unidentified, it is still the best example of what Bullard doesn’t like. If I didn’t know better, I would suspect that both Clark and Bullard want to hang Clark’s book around my neck!
I consider my ideas about the role of archetypal psychology and parapsychology in understanding UFO and ET reports to be merely attempts at opening up, and keeping in mind, alternative perspectives – no more than that.
In summary, I have to agree with those European ufologists who consider American ufology to be a frightful mess. Bullard’s paper goes far, in my opinion, toward supporting this view. It does nothing to refute it. I certainly would like to see the American Way return to action: Truth, not uncriticized fantasy; Justice – for the abductees; and the return of the empirical, pragmatic American ufological brain, the real victim of Abduction. There are signs that this is happening.
References:
- David J. Hufford. The Terror that Comes in the Night: An Experience-centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
- The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility. Grosset and Dunlap, 1972
- Alternate States of Consciousness: Unself Otherself and Superself. Aquarian Press, 1989.
- The Circles Effect and Its Mysteries, Artetech Publishing, 1989.
- Actually, when it comes to the gathering of facts, it is rare indeed that no ‘top-down’ hidden agenda is involved – rare enough that may be seriously doubted whether pure fact-gathering ever takes place.
- Budd Hopkins, ‘Stewpot Thinking’, MUFON UFO Journal, 251, March 1989, pp.8-9,12
- Bullard Might well benefit from a perusal of Michel Meuger and Claude Gagnon’s excellent book, Lake Monster Traditions, (Fortean Tomes, 1988). Meuger documents, by actual field studies, the transformation of traditional folklore creatures into machines.
- See Tony Nugent’s discussion of the three Graea in relationship to the Pascagoula case in his paper ‘Quicksilver in Twilight: A Close Encounter with a Hermetic Eye’, in Cyberbiological Studies of the Imaginal Component in the UFO Contact Experience, Archaeus Publications, 1989, pp.109-124.
- A very recent example depicting the birth of the hero and the flight into the wilderness may be seen in the television special, Shaka Zulu.
- I leave it to our European friends to evaluate Bullard’s counter: “when has the world ever not been in dreadful shape?” Nietzsche once remarked that “if there was a God he would not allow the twentieth century to have happened”.
- Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman, The Unidentified: Notes Towards Solving the UFO Mystery, Warner Paperback Library, 1975. The other full-length Jungian book attempting to account for UFOs is by Gregory L. Little, The Archetype Experience, Rainbow, 1984
- Clark and Coleman, pp. 235ff, 242