Page 15 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Late January 2019

Alien Abductions Down Dramatically 15

Why alien abductions are

down dramatically

By Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

Denise Stoner was 2½ years old the first time
she remembers the alien taking her. She was at
home in Hartford with her grandfather. Her
mother was at the hospital giving birth to her
younger sister. She remembers staring out a
large picture window and seeing an egg-shaped
object in the sky, hovering over some power
lines. “What’s Humpty Dumpty doing up in the
sky?” she asked. She remembers the fear in her
grandfather’s face when he suggested it was
time for bed.
Later that night, as she lay staring at her
nursery rhyme-themed wallpaper, an entity
walked through her wall. “He looked like a
monk, he had a robe, and he was carrying a
light. I wasn’t afraid of him,” she said. “He put
out his other hand for me to take it, and I did.
We walked out into the hallway.” The alien
stories about Hillary Clinton’s alien baby at the abduction narrative wound its way into the
pointed his light at the wall, and they
supermarket checkout line. Today, credulous American consciousness, fed by science fiction
disappeared through it; she remembers being in
stories of alien visitation rarely crack the films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”
a large, dome-shaped room with a lot of other
mainstream media, however much they thrive and breathless news reports of mysterious
children, and they seemed to be learning
on niche TV channels and Internet forums. But incidents. In 1966, a Gallup poll asked
something. In the morning, she was back in her
we also still want to believe in accounts that Americans if they’d ever seen a UFO; 5 percent
bed.
scientists, skeptics, and psychologists say there said they had, but they meant it in the literal
Since then, she says, she has been taken
is no credible evidence to support. sense of an unidentified flying object — only 7
more than 50 times, from her home, from the
The abduction phenomenon began with percent of Americans believed that the UFOs
street, from her car, the last time only three
strange case of Betty and Barney Hill. On Sept. were from outer space. By 1986, a Public
years ago, driving through the mountains in
19, 1961, the Hills were driving from Montreal Opinion Laboratory poll found that 43 percent
Colorado. Each time, it’s the same being
to their home in Portsmouth, N.H. Betty spotted of respondents agreed with the statement: “It is
responsible. “He looks like your typical gray
a UFO following them. Barney stopped the car likely that some of the UFOs that have been
[alien], but he’s one of the tall ones. It’s just the
on the highway, near Indian Head in the White reported are really space vehicles from other
very subtle shape of his face, his chin is a little
Mountains, and got out to look at the craft civilizations.”
wider,” she explained. She calls him her escort.
through binoculars. Seeing humanoid figures in Some experiencers said the aliens were
“There’s no friendship. . . . He comes to get me,
Nazi-like uniforms peering through its here to save us and study us, some said they
and I know I’m going to be safe,” she said.
windows, he ran back to the car, screaming, “Oh were here to harvest our organs and enslave us.
“He’s also going to oversee whatever is done.”
my God, we’re going to be captured!” They But by the late 1980s, people whose stories
Stoner, 68, lives in Florida with her
drove off, but two hours later, they found would have been dismissed as delusional a
husband. Now retired, she works with fellow
themselves 35 miles from the spot where they’d generation earlier were being interviewed by
“experiencers,” people who feel they have had
first seen the craft (there is now a Oprah and “true stories” of alien experience,
contact with intelligent nonhuman entities. She
commemorative marker at the site), with little such as Whitley Strieber’s “Communion” and
also conducts investigations on behalf of the
memory of how they’d gotten there. Soon after, Budd Hopkins’s “Intruders,” were bestsellers.
Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON. Being an
Betty began having nightmares. By the 1990s, those who believed in the literal
experiencer is very much part of her identity.
In 1964, the Hills underwent truth of alien abduction stories gained an
Her story is coherent, she doesn’t ramble or get
hypnotherapy. Under hypnotic regression — important ally in John Mack, a Harvard
lost in the telling.
hypnosis with the intent to help a subject recall professor and psychiatrist who compiled his
Do you believe her?
certain events with more clarity — the couple study of the phenomenon into a 1994 book titled
If you said yes, then you might be
said that they had actually been pulled on board “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.”
among the 77 percent of Americans, according
the vessel by aliens and subjected to invasive He later told the BBC, “I would never say there
to a 2012 National Geographic poll, who
experiments. The Hills’ story, revealed to the are aliens taking people away . . . but I would
believe that aliens have visited Earth, or the 30
public in 1965 with an article in the Boston say there is a compelling, powerful
percent of Americans who believe that the
Traveler and a year later in the book “The phenomenon here that I can’t account for in any
government has covered up evidence of alien
Interrupted Journey,” launched a flurry of other way.”
visitation, according to a 2015 YouGov poll. Or
public fascination with abductions. “These books sold really, really well,
maybe it’s happened to you: There are few hard
Barney died of a cerebral hemorrhage in they were on book racks in airports and railway
numbers, however, a 2014 survey for a British
1969, but Betty went on to become a kind of stations. You couldn’t really avoid it,” said Dr.
talk show found that one in 25 respondents
sage of paranormal experiences. Their story Chris French, head of the anomalistic
believed they’d been abducted by aliens.
became the blueprint for alien abduction psychology department at Goldsmiths College
Belief that alien life exists on other
experiences in the years that followed, in London and author of a study on alien
planets is persuasive, sensible; nearly 80
especially after the airing of the 1975 made-for- abductees. And it wasn’t just books — one of
percent of Americans do believe it, according to
TV film “The UFO Incident,” starring James the most popular television shows of the 1990s
a 2015 poll. But belief that the aliens are already
Earl Jones as Barney Hill. Subsequent was devoted almost entirely to alien conspiracy
here feels like something else, largely because it
experiencers would describe similar missing theory: “The X-Files.” “All of these things
requires a leap of faith longer than agreeing that
time or have bizarre dreams and flashbacks of influence people’s beliefs about what might be
the universe is a vast, unknowable place.
things they couldn’t understand. Many would true, what might be plausible,” said French.
Abduction and contact stories aren’t quite the
use hypnotic regression to recall their
fodder for daytime talk show and New York
experiences. (Continued on Page 17)
Times bestsellers they were a few decades ago.
Over the next two decades, the alien
The Weekly World News is no longer peddling