The Abduction Phenomenon and Hypnosis

There is perhaps no area of the UFO phenomenon more controversial than alleged alien abductions. This has been demonstrated recently in a number of intense threads at UFO Updates, including “UFO Couple Use Story to Spark Alien Abduction” (which begins at www.virtuallystrange,net/ufo/updates/2005/apr/m16-015.shtml)
and “Sakulich and the Betty & Barney Hill Case” (which begins at www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/apr/m18-006.shtml).

My position on abductions has always been straightforward. If the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) is valid, then it is reasonable to assume that abductions may be occurring, in a manner similar, perhaps, to the way that the European explorers used to take natives aboard their ships, or, in some cases, even back to Europe. If the ETH is not valid, then neither is the abduction phenomenon, at least as an alien-related event. In my opinion, Jerry Clark provided the most reasonable conclusion with respect to abductions when he wrote, with respect to the Hill case (the most famous of all abduction cases), “The resolution of the Hill case awaits the resolution of the UFO question itself. If UFOs do not exist, then Barney and Betty Hill did not meet with aliens. If UFOs do exist, they probably did. The evidence available to us from this incident alone provides no answers surer than these. In other words, no answers at all. For now, anyway.”

Thus, the “abduction phenomenon,” like the “UFO phenomenon,” remains unsolved (as the ETH remains unproved), and people on both sides of the issue should retain an open mind – I know I do.

What concerns me about the modern abduction phenomenon, however, is not the phenomenon itself, but rather its reliance on hypnosis as an investigative tool (although not all cases involve hypnosis, the majority certainly seem to, although exact figures are difficult to come by). Like most lawyers, I am extremely leery of any testimony obtained through hypnosis, which I regard as highly unreliable.

I’m not the only one. For example, legendary UFO researcher / author Jacques Vallee, when asked about John Mack’s work, stated that while he “respected [Mack’s] courage” he disagreed with his methods. “Usually scientists tell me that hypnosis is not the best way of helping these people. Nor is it the best way to recover memories.” (see interview at www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc839.htm)

Kevin Randle, Russ Estes and Dr. William Cone, in their landmark study The Abduction Enigma (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1999), examine the use of hypnosis by today’s leading abduction researchers (including Mack, Budd Hopkins, John Carpenter and Richard Boylan). They concur with Vallee. “Hypnotic regression,” they write, “is a poor tool for finding the truth, it allows the subject to confabulate amazing memories and act on those memories as if they were true, and its validity is now being questioned. In fact, in many states, a witness who has been hypnotized in an attempt to learn more of an event can no longer be called as a witness. Courts, and science, recognize how easy memories and events can be reconstructed or confabulated by a clever hypnotist. Even those whose motives are a search for the truth can, and do, lead the subject into memories that are not part of reality.” (p. 338)

As Randle et al note, the law treats hypnosis with extreme caution. For example, the Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom states, “Information obtained under hypnosis should always be treated with extreme caution. There is a strong likelihood that evidence obtained under hypnosis will be unreliable and inadmissible in criminal proceedings.” They note that a person under hypnosis may be subject to “cueing,” which means, “explicit or implicit suggestion by the hypnotist; something said long before the session; something that the witness just happened to be thinking about; and a fantasy of the witness.” During hypnosis, the CPS states, “these can become fixed as facts in the mind of the subject. There is no reliable means of guarding against this happening.” [emphasis added] While hypnosis may be used in “exceptional circumstances” it is “highly desirable to look for corroboration of any evidence obtained under hypnosis before allowing a prosecution to proceed.” The problem with abductions, of course, is that there is no independent corroborative evidence available. For more information, see the CPS’s website at www.cps.gov.uk/legal/section13/chapter_p.html

Perhaps most interesting were the views of Betty Hill, the original “abductee.” In an interview with The Fortean Times about her 1995 book A Common Sense Approach to UFOs (see www.forteantimes.com/articles/110_betty.shtml), she slammed modern abduction researchers and their reliance on hypnosis. The entire interview is a must read for anyone interested in the abduction phenomenon, or the Hill case; however, here are some pertinent excerpts.

“The reason I wrote this book was to try to get across to people that they should stay away from hypnosis. Don’t let anybody fool around in your brain. I mean, you have problems enough to live with yourself, without other people making their contribution.”

She was then asked about why there was a similarity among the stories told to each investigator, but the stories are different from investigator to investigator (a phenomenon Randle et al discuss in detail in The Abduction Enigma).

“Because the investigators are directing them to have those fantasies,” she said. “They’re suggesting them to them. They’re very, very destructive people.” [Note: Hill, of course, had memories supposedly recovered under hypnosis, but she distinguished the “medical hypnosis” she and her husband underwent from the less rigorous techniques used today by abduction researchers such as Budd Hopkins.]

For a general primer on the pros and cons of hypnosis, see "Key Concepts in Hypnosis" by Dr. Campbell Perry, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Concordia University (Montreal), at www.fmsfonline.org/hypnosis.html

Does this mean that the entire abduction phenomenon is invalid, or that it is impossible that what lies behind it is extraterrestrial?

No.

The conclusion that I proffer here is simple, and more limited in scope - that those abduction cases in which hypnosis is used as a tool to recover "lost," or "suppressed," memories, should be treated with extreme caution.

Paul Kimball