A 2005 lecture from Dr. Susan Clancy in which she talks about her research into "alien abductions", and her conclusions.
The blurb:
Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens
They are tiny. They are tall. They are gray. They are green. They survey our world with enormous glowing eyes. To conduct their shocking experiments, they creep in at night to carry humans off to their spaceships. Yet there is no evidence that they exist at all. So how could anyone believe he or she was abducted by aliens? Or want to believe it?
To answer these questions, psychologist Susan Clancy interviewed and evaluated 'abductees' – old and young, male and female, religious and agnostic. She listened closely to their stories – how they struggled to explain something strange in their remembered experience, how abduction seemed plausible, and how, having suspected abduction, they began to recollect it, aided by suggestion and hypnosis.
Clancy argues that abductees are sane and intelligent people who have unwittingly created vivid false memories from a toxic mix of nightmares, culturally available texts (abduction reports began only after stories of extraterrestrials appeared in films and on TV), and a powerful drive for meaning that science is unable to satisfy. For them, otherworldly terror can become a transforming, even inspiring experience. 'Being abducted,' writes Clancy, 'may be a baptism in the new religion of this millennium.' This book is not only a subtle exploration of the workings of memory, but a sensitive inquiry into the nature of belief.
An important work that most UFO researchers either passed on at the time, or simply accepted the "party line" that was put forward by the leaders of the "alien abduction cult" when the book was released. I also recommend my interview from September, 2010, with Kevin Randle, about his book, The Abduction Enigma.
To all of those UFO researchers who are still inclined to defend the practices and ridiculous "theories" of these cultists, answer this one question:
If aliens from other worlds have technology sufficiently advanced to allow them to travel the vast distances between the stars (and even in our own "neighbourhood", those distances boggle the mind), and abduct people here, there and everywhere when they get here, then what kind of person would believe that a plucky little bunch of "abduction researchers" (artists, associate history professors, and so on) could manage to beat these aliens at their own game, and defeat their technlogy and discover their plans?
It's laughable, and it has always been laughable.
In the meantime, people who probably needed real psychiatric help have wasted their time going to these "cultists" for help. Serious UFO research has suffered, and been tainted by this ridiculous circus. Finally, if there really is some sort of paranormal aspect to a few abductions (and I don't rule that out, anymore than I rule out the possibility that some people have direct experiences with a non-human intelligence in any context, "God" being the pre-dominant manifestation throughout human history), then any opportunity to discover such an intelligence has been squandered for decades.
UFO researchers wonder why they get no respect from the mainstream media?
Some even talk in dark tones of a conspiracy.
It's a conspiracy, all right - a conspiracy of self-marginalization by men and women who live in a fantasy world of mediocre 1950s science fiction.
All the while, the real mysteries remain - ephemeral, a bundle of possibilities which, if real, are far more exciting than anything UFO researchers (with a few notable exceptions) have been able to conjure up in the past sixty years. It's not just that they don't have the answers; they don't even have the imagination to ask the right questions.
To all of those UFO researchers who are still inclined to defend the practices and ridiculous "theories" of these cultists, answer this one question:
If aliens from other worlds have technology sufficiently advanced to allow them to travel the vast distances between the stars (and even in our own "neighbourhood", those distances boggle the mind), and abduct people here, there and everywhere when they get here, then what kind of person would believe that a plucky little bunch of "abduction researchers" (artists, associate history professors, and so on) could manage to beat these aliens at their own game, and defeat their technlogy and discover their plans?
It's laughable, and it has always been laughable.
In the meantime, people who probably needed real psychiatric help have wasted their time going to these "cultists" for help. Serious UFO research has suffered, and been tainted by this ridiculous circus. Finally, if there really is some sort of paranormal aspect to a few abductions (and I don't rule that out, anymore than I rule out the possibility that some people have direct experiences with a non-human intelligence in any context, "God" being the pre-dominant manifestation throughout human history), then any opportunity to discover such an intelligence has been squandered for decades.
UFO researchers wonder why they get no respect from the mainstream media?
Some even talk in dark tones of a conspiracy.
It's a conspiracy, all right - a conspiracy of self-marginalization by men and women who live in a fantasy world of mediocre 1950s science fiction.
All the while, the real mysteries remain - ephemeral, a bundle of possibilities which, if real, are far more exciting than anything UFO researchers (with a few notable exceptions) have been able to conjure up in the past sixty years. It's not just that they don't have the answers; they don't even have the imagination to ask the right questions.
Paul Kimball
