Page 12 - 200712 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - December 2007

12 UFOs, Innocence and Movies 12 UFOs, Innocence and Movies How UFOs Lost Their of ET and human DNA. prototype for thousands of other individuals How UFOs Lost Their When Whitley Streiber published Innocence Communion in 1987, he transformed himself who have claimed alien abductions with their Innocence requisite physical and sexual exams. Their story at the Movies from a well-established horror writer into the was covered extensively by John G. Fuller in the at the Movies Continued from Page 11 Continued from Page 11 world's most famous UFO abductee (or book Interrupted Journey (1966), and presented contactee, depending upon one's definitions of in a made-for-television movie (1975) with the terms). The author of such popular novels as James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons playing Forced by an inner compulsion to seek The Wolfen (1978) and The Hunger, both of Barney and Betty. reunion with the aliens atop Devil's Tower, which were made into successful motion In 1989, Whitley Strieber adapted Wyoming, Neary must leave his confused wife pictures, Streiber startled readers and Communion into a motion picture with (Teri Garr) and children behind as he continues researchers alike when he wrote a first-person Christopher Walken portraying the author. his rendezvous with space intelligences. He is account of his encounters with the "visitors" and In 1992, Budd Hopkins' Intruders soon joined by an ally (Melinda Dillon), whose detailed his personal abduction experience that became a television miniseries starring Richard son was abducted from their farm home, who had occurred December 26, 1985. The grim Crenna, Mare Willingham, and Susan Blakely. also is receiving telepathic messages about insect-like visage of the "Gray" staring out from The television version of Hopkins' book where he will be returned to her. the cover of Communion seemed to be an evil chillingly portrayed military and political Spielberg claimed that he had adapted cousin of similar beings that had lovingly figures covering up the truth about alien many actual stories of UFO contact for the encircled and embraced Roy Neary in Close abductions while issuing official denials that screenplay, including accounts from the files of Encounters of the Third Kind. such events were taking place. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer who had The case of Betty and Barney Hill offers Once again, invading, threatening, been employed by the Air Force in their official the prototype for the "interrupted journey," the abusive aliens and the entire UFO mystery were research of the UFO mystery, Project Blue classic case of humans abducted and examined things to be feared, and thousands of people Book. Hynek was even given a cameo in the by aliens from another world. On September 19, around the world, watching such films as these, film, and he can be seen among the scientists 1961, Betty, a social worker, and Barney, a mail began to recall abduction scenarios that gathered to welcome the aliens when the carrier, then in their forties, were returning to allegedly had been repressed until brought to massive mother ship sets down on Devil's their home in New Hampshire from a short conscious memories by such frightening Tower. Canadian vacation when they noticed a bright scenarios as those depicted on the screen. Or so The final scenes of the motion picture object in the night sky. Barney stopped the car it would seem. have been described by many as simulating a and used a pair of binoculars to get a better look It may surprise many readers to learn religious or illumination experience within at it. As he studied the object, its own that back in the early 1960s, there were a them. The score by John Williams, the special illumination showed well-defined disk-like number of serious researchers investigating effects created by Douglas Trumbull, and the shape, moving in an irregular pattern across the claims of UFO contact and abduction. It will remarkable camerawork of Vilmos Zsigmond moonlit sky. surprise even more readers to learn that the certainly added to the feelings of mystical and Fascinated, Barney walked into a nearby scenarios told by the experiencers have supernatural wonder that so enchanted millions field where from that perspective he could remained basically unchanged down through of audience members worldwide. perceive what appeared to be windows--and, the decades. There truly are no new revelations The alien beings, when they are at last from the windows, beings looking back at him. to make concerning the contactee and the revealed on screen, appear to be childlike, The feeling that he was being watched abductee phenomena. benevolent entities, seemingly so innocent as to frightened Barney, and he ran back to the car, John A. Keel once told me how be incapable of interstellar travel. And when got in, and began to race down the road. Then, nonplussed he was to discover in reading Neary is selected to return with them to their as if obeying some internal directive, he drove through a number of old and rare books that world, many people were touched vicariously down a side road--where the Hills found five these much earlier contactees were not only and felt their spirit prepare to lift off with them. humanoid aliens standing in their path. undergoing the classic contact experiences, but Such a positive portrayal of alien life Suddenly unable to control their movements, they were receiving messages almost identical forms as that depicted in Close Encounters of Betty and Barney were taken from their car and, to the modern messages. Using a colorful the Third Kind was in sharp contrast to the in a trancelike condition, led to the UFO by the image, Keel said that it seemed to him as if all monsters and the invaders that had populated so humanoids. these people, widely separated by time, have many science fiction motion pictures, and the According to information later retrieved been receiving communications which are being way was paved for the arrival of Speilberg's under hypnosis, Betty and Barney were returned broadcast over and over again as if by some E.T.--The Extraterrestrial (1982). In this film, unharmed to their car with the mental command giant "phonograph" in the sky. an amphibian/reptilian entity so lived on the that they would forget all about their abduction Continued on Page 13 love vibration from his "heart light" that experience. The UFO then rose into the air and audiences could not resist its charm. disappeared from sight, leaving the Hills to The evil alien invader was banished continue their journey home, oblivious to the from the screen and television sets, and talk of whole event. government coverups were forgotten by all by a Perhaps the remarkable encounter small number of diehard UFO investigators. All would never have been brought to light except over the world, contactees once again were for two factors: they began to experience channeling messages from benevolent entities strange and disconcerting dreams that they watching over humankind. could not understand, and they could not explain the unaccountable two missing hours in The Abductees their journey home from Canada. Betty decided to seek the help of a Sinister aliens doing terrible things to psychiatrist friend, who suggested that the humans didn't return to the general public memory of those lost hours would return in consciousness until stories of men and women time, perhaps in only a few months. But the claiming to have been abducted by details of that unexplained "interruption" extraterrestrial crews for purposes of remained in a troubled limbo of fragmented undergoing bizarre medical examinations were memories until the Hills began weekly hypnosis featured by UFO investigator Budd Hopkins in sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon, a Boston his book Missing Time (1981). In a later work, psychiatrist. Intruders (1987), he continued to propagate the Much has been made of the Hills' alien theory that aliens were abducting Earth men and medical examinations, and their much women for the purpose of creating a hybrid mix publicized experience may have provided the