Abducted: Confrontations with Beings from Outer Space  (Berkley, 1977). Coral and Jim Lorenzen examine eight alien abduction cases and find a pattern of aliens seeking cultural knowledge about humans. They seem particularly interested in learning more about human emotions. The Lorenzenís warn that every human on the planet is a potential kidnap victim.
óRandall Fitzgerald
abduction  The phenomenon of forcible, involuntary capture of a human being by an apparently self-serving alien, generally of the ìGrayî morphology, but also including ìNordicî and reptilian types. Those who have experienced this may be termed ìabducteesî or ìexperiencers,î and often report strong feelings of violation, trauma, and terror. Abduction scenarios commonly include missing time, transfer to a new locale, physical examination and implantation, and human-alien hybridization. It is a global phenomenon, but appears more commonly in American ET contact cases.
óScott Mandelker

Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens  (Charles Scribnerís Sons, 1994). With this book Harvard University professor of psychiatry John E. Mack became the most reputable figure in science or medicine to profess a belief in the reality of the alien abduction phenomenon. He put seventy-six abductees through hypnosis, including thirteen persons whose cases are used in this book, and found consistent patterns in their accounts down to tiny details. The purpose of these abductions and the collection of eggs and sperm from abductees seems to be ìgenetic engineering for the purpose of creating human/alien hybrid offspring.î Another goal of this alien program is the alteration of human consciousness to change our perceptions of ourselves as a species.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Abduction Transcription Project In 1992, Dan Wright (Deputy Director for the Mutual UFO Network) devised the Abduction Transcription Project on MUFONís behalf. Project participants over the next six years included twenty psychiatrists, psychologists, and others who recorded regressive hypnosis sessions to elicit memories of alien abduction. A corps of MUFON volunteers ultimately transcribed 930 audio cassettes, involving 265 separate cases, to promote advanced research.
Wright created a 300-page index of key words and phrases from those sessionsósome 2000-plus separate elements. The entries described entity appearances, actions and communications; details of the interior and exterior of alien ships viewed during abduction experiences; medical equipment, instruments and procedures employed; resulting physical effects on the subjectsí anatomies; and particular psychic abilities and other paranormal events seemingly related to the abduction episodes.
At the 1997 MUFON International UFO Symposium, Wright offered an overview of his findings to that point regarding 254 abduction cases. His conclusions addressed five themes present in human-alien interactions:
Sex and Reproduction
1) Various entity types have a keen interest in human sexuality and reproduction. This is evidenced by a preponderance of instances involving the harvesting of human male sperm; removal of ova and/or uterine tissue from human females as well as the implantation of embryos and later removal of partially gestated fetuses; forced intercourse between the subjects and entities or other human captives; maintenance of ìnurseriesî onboard with gestation receptacles and/or newborns; and forced breast feeding of ìhybridî and other newborns.
Dual Identity
2) A substantial share of abductees sense an ìalien connectionî from a realm ostensibly outside this conscious life. Attendant to this conviction is a certainty of protection against untimely death, an entityís conveyance that the subject is ìspecialî or ìchosen,î or an episode in which the individual seemingly realizes she or he is in a nonhuman form in the company of entities with similar appearance.
Sense of Mission
3) Many abductees relate being told by aliens of a ìmissionî to perform at some unspecified future time and/or having received technical instruction. They relate episodes of memorizing ambiguous computer graphics, learning specifics of an alien shipís technical operations, and/or being told that they will intuitively know where to be at a point in time to begin an unexplained assignment.
World Catastrophes
4) A substantial share of the abduction subjects describe an impending geophysical disaster to befall the Earth, as shown or told to them aboard a ship. Predominant among that cataclysmic imagery are a tilting of Earthís axis and/or earthquakes and volcanoes unprecedented in scope within recorded history, vast regions of the landscape on fire, and massive tidal waves inundating coastlines.
Military Involvement
5) A disturbing number of subjects in the project claim the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus is directly involved in, or has acquiesced in, an alien program of human abductions. They report (a) underground alien or shared government-alien facilities; (b) military personnel acting in concert with alien beings; and/or (c) military personnel abducting them, or aerial harassment by unmarked helicopters of their homes, in the aftermath of alien abductions.
Based on the repetition of unpublicized details arising in the transcripts he has reviewed, Wright concludes that human abductions by alien life forms are a reality. He is confidant that the various entity types described arise from multiple places and are not necessarily all working in concert. Short of a startling admission by one or more governments on our planet, he doubts that the full truth of alien intrusion can ever be known.
óETEP Staff

POSTSCRIPT: While ìabductionistsî such as Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, and Harvard Universityís Dr. John Mack have achieved fame (and fortune) as experts on the UFO-abduction phenomenon, the efforts of little-known researcher Dan Wright have provided more scientifically useful insights into the true nature of the phenomenon than all other abductionists combined. Wright heads a MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) committee which painstakingly transcribes the tales told by abducteesótypically under hypnosisówhich Wright then analyzes in a search for patterns. The results of Wrightís latest analysis were reported at MUFONís recent conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Wrightís latest analysis is based on 906 taped transcripts of 254 alleged abductions obtained from 20 abduction researchers. These included David Jacobs, but Budd Hopkins and John Mack did not participate. Wrightís recent report reveals a significant gender pattern. Of the 254 subjects, 64 percent were female, 30 percent were male and 6 percent involved couples.
During the supposed abductions, 54 percent of the female subjects reported being subjected to some gynecological procedure. Of these, 19 percent reported having a fetus aborted, while 7 percent reported having an embryo implanted in their womb. Nearly a third reported having ova or tissue removed. (But 46 percent reported no ET interest in such matters.)
The transcripts also revealed that 32 percent of the male subjects reported having sperm extracted, or implied that such had occurred. (Seemingly, more than two-thirds of the male abductees failed to meet ET standards to ìfatherî a hybrid.
4 percent of the female subjects reported being forced to engage in sexual intercourse with ETs, one by a ìshort greenish-brown reptilianî who was trying to arouse her with its ìmetal claws.î One male subject reported being forced to engage in sex with another male abductee.
11 percent of the female subjects reported they had breast-fed a hybrid baby, even though none of them had been pregnant or lactating at the time.
17 percent reported one or more of the following: underground government, alien, or shared government-alien facilities; government personnel acting in concert with alien beings; government intrusion or harassment during an alien abduction.
Wrightís Conclusions
Although Wright acknowledges his belief in the reality of UFO abductions, he offers a wise caveat. ìRegressive hypnosis, the cornerstone of the Abduction Transcription Project, offers only evidenceónot proofóof alien abductions. Some of the people in the study might have a penchant for fantasies or a need to be part of an exclusive ëclub.í Moreover, many were less than carte blanche subjects, having read one or more abduction-related books prior to undergoing hypnosis sessions.î
What convinces Wright of the reality of UFO abductions are the ìdetails, sequences, cause and effect. These to the author are the proofs of an alien abduction reality.î
He cites the following as an example: ìDozens of subjects said they were shown one or more infants or a room full of incubating fetuses. But, if these were only copycat images, how is it that each person placed the ëbabyí presentation sequentially afterónever beforeóprocedures on an examining table. No book or TV documentary has emphasized that.î However, this author suggests the contrary: that overall, most contemporary books and TV shows essentially do follow the traditional scenario with the examination first.
Possibly Wrightís most significant commentary appears early in his MUFON paper: ìRegressive hypnosis cannot irrefutably uncover truth stemming from significant events in oneís life. Whether such episodes entail emotional or sexual abuse, a fanciful personality, or some other prosaic explanation, the subjects in this project nonetheless have concluded that unearthly beings are responsible for their recovered memories. Further, in that there are no conclusive means to discern fact from fiction in their recorded accounts, no greater weight is given to a particular case over any other.î
Thus, it is impossible to determine from the content of the tales whether all 254 abduction accounts are literally true, or if some are true and some are fantasyóor if all are fantasy. No ìabducteeî claim is so wild as to prompt Wright to label it as fantasy.
óPhilip J. Klass
abductions  Also known as Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (CE-IV events), these experiences typically include: (1) capture by alien beings, (2) time spent aboard a spaceship, and (3) bizarre, sometimes gruesome medical examinations.
Abduction reports are relative newcomers to UFO lore. John G. Fuller introduced the story of Barney and Betty Hill in his book, The Interrupted Journey, in 1966, making the Hill case the prototypical and most familiar abductionóthough not the first on record.
Brazilian farmer, Antonio Villas Boas, described an abduction to UFOlogists in early 1958, but they suppressed his report because of the sensationalistic claim that an alien woman seduced him. The Villas Boas and Hill cases share significant points in common even though neither case could have influenced the other. Subsequent witnesses have claimed abduction dates in the 1950s and earlier, but the Villas Boas and Hill reports were the first documented accounts.
Despite the popularity of Fullerís book, abduction accounts remained scarce for many years. Herbert Schirmer received some media attention in 1967; and in 1973, a report from Pascagoula, Mississippi, made the national news when two shipyard workers, Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker, reported they had been captured by three mummy-like beings.
Then in November of 1975, Travis Walton of Snowflake, Arizona, disappeared for five days and returned with an abduction story destined for national notoriety.
After the mid-1970s a growing trickle of people stepped forward to describe fragmentary, half-hidden memories of troubling UFO encounters. Coral and Jim Lorenzen, Dr. Leo Sprinkle, Dr. James Harder, Raymond Fowler, Walter Webb, Ann Druffel, Jenny Randles, D. Scott Rogo and other investigators began to specialize in these reports. With the help of hypnotists they sometimes recovered abduction accounts from an hour or two when the witnessís memory failed.
A breakthrough came late in the decade when Budd Hopkins teamed with professional hypnotists to explore periods of memory lapse connected not just with sightings of mysterious lights but with less specific experiences, such as a stretch of roadway or a childhood recollection that provoked unaccountable anxieties. Where he found a memory gap, he often discovered an abduction, and this new realization that the phenomenon spread further than anyone suspected became the central message of his first book, Missing Time (1981).
Throughout the 1980s, the abduction phenomenon continued to rise to the forefront of UFOlogy. Investigation of Betty Andreasson uncovered not just one event but a lifelong series of alien encounters extending back into her childhood.
Another account, from the Tujunga Canyon area of California, led to the discovery of a series of abductions among five female acquaintances. In his second book, Intruders (1987), Hopkins told of a young Indianapolis woman being impregnated by aliens who removed the fetus, then later during another abduction introduced her to the childóa human-alien hybrid.
Author Whitley Strieber proved the famous were vulnerable as well and spread awareness of abductions further than ever before with his bestselling book, Communion (1987).
Trademark © Walker & Collier, Inc.
Strieberís ìvisitorî became an icon
after its appearance in 1987
on the cover of Communion.
Some 300 cases had entered the literature by 1985, followed by another 500 over the next six years. An OMNI magazine survey in December 1987 drew some 1,200 responses from people describing abductions or abduction-like symptoms, while a Roper Poll carried out in 1992 found abduction-related experiences so common that a conservative extrapolation implicated some 2 percent of the U.S. population as likely abductees.
The subject attracted an increasingly distinguished scholarly followingóboth for and againstóduring the 1990s. Historian Dr. David M. Jacobs turned investigator and described the recurrent order he found among abductee accounts in Secret Life (1992); he then proposed hybridization and eventual alien domination of the earth to be the purpose behind these encounters in The Threat (1998).
Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. John E. Mack, also became an investigator convinced that the phenomenon is literally true, but found it benign: an interaction working to change human consciousness from materialism to a more spiritual orientation. He published his findings in Abduction (1994) and underwent a university-sponsored investigation by colleagues who suspected him of unscientific procedures.
Abductees, investigators, and researchers gathered for the Abduction Study Conference Held at MIT in 1992: an attempt to synthesize accumulated knowledge and plot future research summarized in the proceedings, Alien Discussions (1994). Noted writer, C. D. B. Bryan, observed the conference and presented his sympathetic impressions in Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (1995).
Another trend of the decade has been a willingness of abductees to follow in the footsteps of Whitley Strieber and tell their own stories in print. The list includes Karla Turner, Katharina Wilson, Debbie Jordan, Travis Walton, Beth Collings and Anna Jamerson. Abduction research has become an organized subdiscipline of UFOlogy, with Budd Hopkinsís Intruders Foundation, John Mackís Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER), and the Fund for UFO Research sponsoring programs to explore physical and psychological clues to the nature of the phenomenon.
Most abduction reports originate in North America, but the phenomenon is worldwide with South America, Britain, and Australia producing numerous reports. A growing number of cases have emerged from continental Europe and the former Soviet Union, while Africa and Asia have begun to contribute reports as well.
Though most abductions involve a single witness, perhaps one fourth are multiple-witness cases, with three or more individuals sometimes taken at once. Abductees come from all walks of life, all levels of education, and all lines of work. Males and females seem about equally prone to the experience. Psychological tests of abductees have failed to uncover any overt mental illnessóthough their profiles indicate some of the insecurities characteristic of crime victims. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of abductees is their age distribution. Anyone from children to the elderly may be abducted, but by far the most abductees are less than 35 years of age when first taken.
Hypnosis became standard operating procedure to probe a period of missing time with Barney and Betty Hill, and this technique remains the most successful way to lift amnesia or remove an apparent mental block and release memories of an abduction experience. Some two-thirds to three-fourths of the known cases have included this controversial procedure, though some witnesses, such as Charles Hickson, recall everything clearly from the start.
In other instances lost memories return spontaneously within days, weeks, or months; or emerge in dreams or nightmares. Many witnesses retain some memories with hypnosis serving only to fill in minor details.
However the story emerges, the accounts seem remarkably alike. Reports contain a maximum of eight episodes:
Capture. Alien beings capture a human to take aboard a spaceship.
Examination. The beings subject their captive to a medical examination.
Conference. A meeting, lecture, or schooling session follows.
Tour. The witness is treated to a sightseeing tour of the ship.
Otherworldly Journey. The beings fly the witness to an otherworldly environment.
Theophany. The witness meets a divine being or has a religious experience.
Return. The witness returns to Earth and resumes normal activities.
Aftermath. Aftereffects of the abduction influence the witness for weeks or years to come.
Complex order extends to the capture and examination episodes as well. The capture scenario begins with some abductees taken while driving, usually in a remote area; others while at home or in bed; still others while outdoors in the open.
Aliens or their UFO first appear, then silence and stillness settle over the physical world while abductees lose the will to resist and paralysis creeps over their bodies. The beings float their captives to the ship or a beam of light draws them up and they enter suddenly, with a momentary lapse of memory.
Once the examination begins, it also follows a set course as the witness undresses and lies on a table, then the beings perform a manual examination and an eye-like device scans the witnessís body. Instrumental procedures follow, then the beings take samples of bodily materials and procedures concerned with the reproductive organs, neurological system, and emotions or behavior follow in sequence.
The neurological examination may include placing an implant within the body, often the head region of the witness. One being stares into the eyes of the witness at close range and for a prolonged period during the examination.
The beings usually communicate by telepathy and limit the conversation to instructions until the examination is completed. A conference allowing for some degree of talk may follow. This conference may simply extend the behavioral examination and explore human reactions to projected images or dramatic scenes.
 In other cases a formal and distinct conference episode brings the witness face-to-face with an alien for questions and answers or to a lecture hall to hear some sort of lesson. The beings often warn of a time of tribulation ahead and prophesy disasters to come, and may school the witness for an obscure mission to be performed ìwhen the time is right.î
In recent years some abductees have reported visits to a room filled with fetuses floating in tanks, or being presented with a hybrid infant or child and encouraged to hold, play with, or ìnurtureî it. If the witness travels with the beings, the destination is otherworldlyóbut not necessarily another planet. A short trip brings the ship to an underground or undersea location: a subterranean world of great beauty but no sunlight, only a uniformly lighted sky. If the otherworld is another planet, it is often dark and desolate, showing signs of ruin and destruction.
Three stages of aftereffects make up the aftermath episode. (1) Immediate aftereffects last a week or so and include physical conditions such as reddened eyes, sunburned skin, puncture wounds, dehydration, and nausea. (2) Intermediate aftereffects follow in a week or so and are mostly psychological, with nightmares and anxiety attacks being the most common. (3) Long-term consequences may span years and include a major restructuring of the abducteeís personality, for better or worse. Abductees may develop psychic powers and experience paranormal events; in time they develop new interests and habits leading to a change of careers and lifestyles. Further abductions are common sequels.
Few reports contain every possible episode or every possible event within an episode. Out of 300 reports, capture and examination were by far the most common, while theophanies occurred in only six cases. A remarkable consistency characterizes one report after another. Whenever an episode or event occurs, it follows the prescribed order in most cases, despite the absence of any logical obligation for a conference to always follow an examination or a scan to precede sample-taking. The reasonable expectation that a fantasized story would reflect the creative imagination and personal needs of the storyteller is not realized in abduction accounts. Their fidelity to a fixed order seems an integral part of the phenomenon.
The descriptive content also persists from report to report. The craft is usually a thick disk with an examination room inside. This room has rounded walls and a domed roof, a uniform fluorescence, and misty or heavy air accompanied by a chilly temperature.
Doors often open out of nowhere and disappear when they close, leaving no seam. Humanoids, humans, and monsters occupy the craft. Monsters are quite rare and human-like entities appear in no more than a fourth of the crews. Most occupants are humanoids, some tall and some short, but by far the majority represents a single type: the ìstandardî humanoid.
This being is three to five feet tall and has a fetal appearance, with a large rounded cranium tapering to a pointed chin and a face dominated by enormous eyes that extend around the side of the head in a ìwraparoundî effect. The other facial features are vestigialóthe mouth is a mere hole or slit, the nose only air-holes, the ears nonexistent or holes at most. The skin is usually gray and fungus-like, as if never exposed to sunlight, and completely hairless.
 Sexual distinctions are seldom reported and most of these beings seem neuter. Some humanoids are robust but most appear frail, sometimes with unusually thin necks and long arms. They walk with stiff or clumsy steps but more often glide or float, and use telepathy to communicate with captives. One being is usually a little taller than the rest and serves as a leader or liaison, and may become familiar to the abductee.
Though polite, the outward courtesy of the beings hides an innate coldness. They show little concern or understanding for human feelings and care only for accomplishing their mission.
A surrealistic atmosphere surrounds abduction, from the vacuum-like cessation of sound and traffic at the beginning to the apparitions and Men in Black that sometimes haunt abductees long after the encounter. The most celebrated effect is time lapse, a loss of memory covering the period from the early stages of capture until the abductee returns to a normal environment.
Another striking effect is the flotation many abductees report. They also experience some sort of mental impairment while in captivity, an inappropriate docility or peacefulness alternating with a sense of terror. The beings usually exert something like a hypnotic influence to restore this unnatural tranquility when it weakens, or accomplish an instant relief of pain with a touch on the forehead.
Proponents of a physical phenomenon sometimes explain abduction as the result of alien visitors satisfying their scientific curiosity. Another solution that accepts alien visitors also takes into account the apparent large number of abductions, the focus on reproduction, and the deceitfulness of the aliens to conclude that they come from a planet in trouble. They face extinction and need us or our planet to forestall their fate. By collecting eggs and sperm the aliens gather the genetic materials necessary to reinvigorate their stock or hybridize with earthlings, while any altruistic pose of preparing the earth for a future catastrophe simply hides the true selfish purpose of abductions.
A more favorable viewpoint, expressed in various ways by Sprinkle, Strieber, Mack, Kenneth Ring, John Keel, and Jacques Vallee, takes into account the baffling, surreal, seemingly paraphysical aspects of the phenomenon and interprets abduction as an effort of aliens or a cosmic mind to alter human consciousness. The effort may proceed with benign intent or with blind indifference, but the end result is a fundamental reordering of human thought, perhaps an acceptance of cosmic citizenship, perhaps a new sense of unity for humans with earth and cosmos, or perhaps merely a change with no clear direction.
Skeptics note that abductions resemble fairy legends and near-death experiences. These similarities suggest a psychological source underlying the story content. Dr. Alvin Lawson experimented with non-abductees who told abduction-like stories when questioned under hypnosis and proposed that abduction content originates in memory of the birth experience. Other doubters blame hypnosis, pointing out that a hypnotized subject is highly suggestible and responds to cues from investigators eager to find an abduction.
Leading UFO debunker, Philip J. Klass, argues that subjects familiar with media portrayals of abduction either fabricate the story or fantasize the narrative in response to leading questions. The possibility that false memory syndrome provokes accusations of child abuse and satanic ritual abuse, as well as abduction claims, has generated an extensive literature of psychological and skeptical commentary during the 1990s.
Comparative study leaves no explanation entirely satisfactory. The skeptics who blame hypnosis must explain the cases retrieved without its help, while the order and details in the reports seem to recur too often for passing familiarity to explain. The tenaciousness of a single order and similar descriptions in report after report defies the usual process of variation characteristic of folk narratives or personal fantasies.
Abduction reports also demonstrate a deep coherency, since the aliens manifest an interest in reproduction at the same time as they explain outright that their planet has lost its fertility. Anyone with a casual knowledge of the abduction story might pick up these clues. Yet the reports also include a preference for youthful captives, rejection of the old or infertile as unsuitable, the devastation of the otherworld, and the unhealthy appearance of the beings themselves.
Pieces of the puzzle interlock into a meaningful picture, although this is not immediately evident. Rather, a meaningful whole appears only after comparing many more cases than most people ever examine. The same themes appear in various guises to reinforce the verisimilitude of the abduction story, and a coherent picture is undeniable.
On the other hand, aliens advanced enough to create hybrids but obliged to steal the raw materials to do so seem implausible. With all the implants, missing fetuses, and aliens on patrol that abduction claims require, lack of creditable physical evidence that can be unequivocally connected to alien beings raises doubts as well.
The mysteries of human memory and suggestibility open other paths to explore before the reality of abduction claims become acceptable. In any balanced evaluation the issue of abductions remains far from resolution.
óThomas Eddie Bullard
References
Bryan, C. D. B. Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T. (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
Druffel, Ann, and D. Scott Rogo. The Tujunga Canyon Contacts (Prentice-Hall, 1980).
Fuller, John. The Interrupted Journey (Dial Press, 1966).
Hopkins, Budd. Missing Time (Richard Marek, 1981).
Intruders (Random House, 1987).
Jacobs, David M. Secret Life (Simon & Schuster, 1992).
The Threat (Simon & Schuster, 1998).
Jordan, Debbie, and Kathy Mitchell. Abducted! The Story of the Intruders ContinuesÖ(Carroll & Graf, 1994).
Klass, Philip J. UFO-Abductions: A Dangerous Game (Prometheus Books, 1988).
Mack, John E. Abducted (Charles Scribnerís Sons, 1994).
Ring, Kenneth. The Omega Project. (William Morrow, 1992).
Story, Ronald D., ed. The Encyclopedia of UFOs. (Doubleday/New English Library, 1980).
Walton, Travis. Fire in the Sky (Marlowe, 1996).
Wilson, Katharina. The Alien Jigsaw (Puzzle Publishing, 1993-1995).
Above Top Secret  (Sidgwick and Jackson/William Morrow, 1987). British researcher Timothy Good summarizes or reprints UFO reports and government documents from ten nations in an attempt to prove a massive worldwide cover-up of the truth about UFOs. Good also spends a chapter trying to rehabilitate the reputation and credibility of Frank Scully, whose book in 1950 claimed that a spacecraft with alien bodies crashed in New Mexico.
óRandall Fitzgerald
Adamski, George (1891-1965). A Polish immigrant, without formal education, who was the first to widely publicize his alleged contacts with people from outer space. His bestselling book, Flying Saucers Have Landed (coauthored with Desmond Leslie), and its sequels, made him the best-known of all the ìcontactees,î several dozen of which followed his lead.
 He is described by his disciples (the present-day George Adamski Foundation, based in Vista, California) as a (former) ìauthor-lecturer on Unidentified Flying Objects, space travel, Cosmic Philosophy and Universal Laws of Life.î As a child, Adamski is said to have had a deep feeling of reverence for nature and to have often pondered great philosophical questions about the interrelationship between the rest of nature and man. He was often referred to in written accounts as ìProfessorî Adamski, which he said was an honorary title bestowed upon him by his students. However, a significant portion of the general public was misled into believing that he was an accredited scientist.
UFO INTERNATIONAL
George Adamski
According to Frank Edwards, writing in Flying SaucersóHere and Now! (1967): ìPrior to becoming associated with a hamburger stand on the road to Mount Palomar, George had worked in a hamburger stand as a grill cook. With this scientific background he wrote, in his spare time, a document which he called An Imaginary Trip to the Moon, Venus and Mars. He voluntarily listed it with the Library of Congress for copyright purposes as a work of fiction.î Edwards claims to have read the manuscript, which he said was later offered, in revised form, as a factual account of Adamskiís contact experiences.
Jerome Clark reports a similar story in his book The Unidentified (co-authored with Loren Coleman): ìRay Palmer has maintained for years that back in 1946, when he edited Amazing Stories, he rejected a manuscript Adamski had submitted. The story, which did not pretend to be anything but fantasy, concerned Jesus Christís landing on earth in a spaceship. In 1953, when Palmer read Flying Saucers Have Landed, he was amazed to discover that the new story was really the old one updated, with Jesus now a Venusian and the spaceship a flying saucer.î (Clark and Coleman, 1975)
Adamski claimed to have seen his first ìspaceshipî on October 9, 1946, over his California home in Palomar Gardens. It was a dirigible-shaped ìMother Ship,î he said, which carried the smaller ìflying saucers,î or ìScout craft,î inside. Then in August of 1947, 184 saucers allegedly passed over the slopes of Palomar again, as Adamski watched.
It was not until November 20, 1952, that the first face-to-face meeting reportedly occurred between Adamski and his ìspace friends,î as he sometimes called them. The location of this historic event was said to be near Desert Center, in the California desert. Also present were six witnesses who later signed a sworn affidavit. A detailed account of the incident, in which Adamski meets Orthon, a man from Venus, appears in Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953).
Briefly, the supposed event can be described as follows: Orthonís saucer descends from a huge ìMother Ship,î hovering high above. After landing on a nearby hill, the Venusian walks over to Adamski, who remains calm and cool throughout the entire episode. Orthon was described as smooth-skinned, beardless, and well dressed. He had shoulder-length blond hair, was about five feet six inches tall, and wore what looked like a ski suit with a broad belt around the waist.
The Venusian began communicating by telepathy, informing Adamski of the Space Peoplesí friendly intentions and concern over ìradiations from our nuclear tests.î It was made clear to George that we earthlings had better start living according to the laws of the ìCreator of All,î which, of course, had been taught all along by ìProfessorî Adamski. After about one hour had elapsed, Orthon returned to his ship and buzzed away.
UFO INTERNATIONAL
Cover art from Adamskiís first book,
Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953)
Many more contacts were to follow, including rides into space and lengthy dialogues with other spacemen (such as Firkon, a Martian, and Ramu, a Saturnian), which were recounted verbatimówithout a tape recorderóin Adamskiís second book Inside the Space Ships (1955).
Back on Earth, Adamski was in great demand for lectures, radio and TV appearances, as well as countless interviews for newspapers and magazines. He toured the world, speaking to millions of people, and was reportedly granted private audiences with Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Pope John XXIII.
In October, 1957, UFO researcher James W. Moseley (now editor of Saucer Smear, formerly Saucer News) published a damaging exposÈ of Adamskiís claims, based on personal interviews with Adamski and most of his close friends and co-workers. Among other interesting tidbits, Moseley made the following points:
1. Adamskiís first book misquoted a number of people regarding statements they supposedly made in support of his claims.
2. The six ìwitnessesî at the November 20, 1952, ìDesert Contactî all had backgrounds as UFO believers, had no special expertise, and did not see enough detail to vouch for the reality of the incident. Some of them later admitted this.
3. The ìDesert Contactî was not accidental as claimed, but was pre-planned from detailed information and instructions that Adamski tape recorded and played for several co-workers, about a week before the incident took place.
4. In a letter to a close friend, which Moseley obtained, Adamski wrote: ìSometimes you have to use the back door to get the Truth across.î
On Adamskiís behalf, it can be said that he was trying to get across certain truthsóregardless of whether they were coming from the ìspace brothersî or ancient philosophers on Earth. As one reads Inside the Space Ships, especially, what is strikingly evident are the obvious metaphors on every page. This may be the point that Desmond Leslie intended in the foreword to the book when he said: ìWe are in no position to sit and split hairs when the very foundations of this planet are teetering on disaster. Read, then, the following with an open mind and see whether the light of its teaching rings true.î (Adamski, 1955)
To a Jungian, Adamskiís tour of the space ship becomes a treasure trove of technological metaphors coinciding with virtually every principle of mystical truth found in the philosophica perennisóor Perennial Philosophyóand in the Holy Bible: the all-seeing ìEye of God,î warnings about idolatry, the importance of self-knowledge, warnings about egotism and self-seeking, respect for natural law and the need for harmony with nature, respect for the planet and other life-forms, unity and altruism, the reconciliation of opposites, microcosm and macrocosm, oneness with the universe, death and rebirth, the law of balance, karma and the Golden Rule, and cosmic understanding, in general.
Examples of technological metaphors include: light as enlightenment; a giant lens as the ìEye of Godî; the power of the space ship as the power of the mind; space travel as ascension; the secrets of space travel as the secrets of life; interplanetary travel as connecting the ìgodsî (for which the planets were named), which can be interpreted as integrating the potentialities within us; the speed of light as the speed of truth (or thought); and telepathy as a symbol for total honesty.
As sociologist David Stupple cleverly pointed out, Adamski and most of the other leading contactees of the 1950s were utopians. ìGeorge Adamski had a vision of a better world, and that vision apparently became reality for him.î (Stupple, 1980)
After a successful twelve years as a famous celebrity, Adamski died of a heart attack on April 23, 1965, in Washington, D.C.
óRonald D. Story
References
Adamski, George and Leslie, Desmond. Flying Saucers Have Landed (The British Book Centre/Werner Laurie, 1953).
Inside the Space Ships (Abelard-Schuman, 1955).
Clark, Jerome and Coleman, Loren. The Unidentified (Warner Paperback Library, 1975).
Edwards, Frank. Flying SaucersóHere and Now! (Lyle Stuart, 1967).
Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy (Harper & Brothers, 1945).
Moseley, James W. Personal communication, February 14, 2000.
Stupple, David. ìThe Man Who Talked with Venusiansî in Proceedings of the First International UFO Congress, edited by Curtis G. Fuller (Warner Books, 1980).
Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO)  APRO was founded in January 1952 by a Wisconsin couple, Jim (Leslie James) and Coral E. Lorenzen who later moved to Alamogordo, New Mexico, and finally to Tucson, Arizona, where the organization was based until it was dissolved in 1988.
The organization was based on the premise that the UFO phenomenon is important enough to warrant an objective, scientific investigation. Toward this end APRO became a pacesetter in many ways.
APRO was the first organization of its kind in the world in that it always maintained representatives in most foreign countries who kept headquarters in Tucson informed concerning UFO activity around the globe. About 10 percent of its membership were outside the United States.
In 1956, APRO began to recruit scientific personnel to investigate and evaluate cases, rather than depend on newspaper clippings as source material. A Field Investigators Network, composed of selected APRO members was spread across North America and extending overseas. These members investigated UFO cases and forwarded the results to headquarters. The advice of APROís consultants in their various fields of specialization was relied upon to indicate appropriate areas and direction of research.
The general membership would furnish leads to be referred to Field Investigators for follow-up. Current UFO reports, results of various projects, editorial commentaries and other features were carried in the monthly APRO Bulletin. The first issue of the APRO Bulletin was published in June 1952 and ran through most of 1987.
In 1957, APRO began building its international staff as well as its scientific consulting staff. At one time, the organization had forty-two scientists on its consulting panelsólisted under four general categories: biological, medical, physical, and social sciencesóand foreign representatives in forty-seven different countries.
APRO proved to be a pacesetter in other areas as well. The concept of specially selected Field Investigators originated with APRO, and in 1971 it was the first private UFO research organization to sponsor a scientific symposium on UFOs.
In 1968, APRO initiated the Field Investigator Network system, which was later adopted by both MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) and CUFOS (the Center for UFO Studies).
In 1970, APRO published the first Field Investigatorís manual. The first UFO Conference was held in Peoria, Illinois in 1970, sponsored by APRO and the local Peoria Research Group. MUFON surfaced the same year when its leader, Walt Andrus, decided that he wanted his own group.
APRO enjoyed considerable success during the late 1960s while UFOs were leading law enforcement officers and the general public in a merry chase that resulted in the appointment of the Condon Committee, under contract to the U.S. Air Force.
When the Condon Committee closed its doors and issued its final report in 1968, the Air Force followed suit and announced its disengagement with the UFO problem in December 1969.
The last large UFO research group came upon the scene in 1973, when Dr, J. Allen Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies. Between 1963 and 1973, Dr. Hynek contacted the top men in the UFO field around the world and to establish the nucleus of CUFOS. Both MUFON and CUFOS are similar to APRO in their organizational structure and methodology.
Perhaps most significantly, APRO was a pacesetter in the overall modern trend in UFOlogy relating to close encounters of the third and fourth kinds (CE-3s and CE-4s): entities and abductions. From the time the first cases were publicized in the 1960s, APRO supported the idea of UFO ìoccupantsî or ìentities,î as the Lorenzens called them, while rejecting most ìcontacteeî claims.
óETEP Staff
Aetherius Society  An international metaphysical, scientific, and religious organization, the Aetherius Society was founded in London, England, in 1956 by Dr. George King, Ph.D. (1919-1997). The American headquarters (in California) was established in 1960, and there are other branches in Detroit, Australia, West Africa, and throughout the British Isles.
The society bases its beliefs upon the contact Dr. King is said to have had with highly evolved ìMastersî on other planetsómostly within this solar systemóand the more than six hundred communications, or ìTransmissions,î he has allegedly received from them. King claims that he was first contacted, one morning in May 1954, by a ìvoice from spaceî that said. ìPrepare yourself! You are to become the Voice of Interplanetary Parliament.î Thus, the thirty-five-year-old Englishman became the ìPrimary Terrestrial Mental Channelî by authority of the voice which (he later discovered) belonged to a thirty-five-hundred-year-old Venusian Master called Aetherius (a pseudonym meaning ìOne Who comes from Outer Spaceî). Aetherius and other members of the ìHierarchy of the Solar Systemî had an urgent message to give to Earth through the unique Yogic mediumship of George King, and in 1955 a series of ìCosmic Transmissionsî began, which continued throughout his life.
To receive them, King would go into a samadhic trance in which the consciousness is supposedly raised to a high ìPsychic Center.î A telepathic beam of thought was placed on him by the communicator, and the message was received and transmitted through Kingís brain and voice box, emerging in the form of slow-spoken, resonant English. All messages are preserved on audio tape.
The messages include warnings against the use of nuclear energy in any form and exhortations to put the world in order by returning to the ìCosmic Lawsî as taught by great Masters such as Jesus, Buddha, and Krishnaóall of whom are said to have come from other planets.
Life on the other planets is described as free from war, hatred, disease, want, and ignorance. The inhabitants have perfected spacecraft that can traverse the galaxy and beyond. Some of these craft, engaged in metaphysical operations around the Earth, have been termed ìflying saucers.î
Among their supposed missions were the following: to protect us from outside interference from hostile races, to monitor all changes in the environment and geophysical structure of the planet, and to help clear up harmful radiation in the atmosphere.
King stated that without flying saucers the world would be lifeless. Messages from the commanders of some of the craft indicate that mankind is the ìproblem childî of the solar system and an area of vulnerability in an otherwise well-protected sector of the galaxy. This is of special importance to the Aetherius Society in view of its belief that an intergalactic conflict is now in progress.
The society also believes in reincarnation and teaches that mankind itself originally came from another planet in this solar system, which is now the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Our original home planet is said to have been destroyed by a total atomic chain reaction, and mankind was reincarnated on Earth some 18 million years ago.
According to the societyís beliefs, two previous civilizations on Earth, Lemuria and Atlantis, also perished due to an atomic war, and the Cosmic Masters are now actively concerned with preventing a third such catastrophe. It is further maintained that specially trained interplanetary Adepts are on Earth engaged in a cleansing operation to eliminate the centers of evil, which have dominated the world for eons and seek to eventually enslave all of mankind.
The plan will culminate with the arrival of an extraterrestrial Master from a flying saucer some time in the not-too-distant future. When this happens, all people on Earth will be offered the choice of following the laws of God and entering a New Age of peace and enlightenment, or rejecting the laws and passing through death to a younger planet where they will relearn the lessons of life.
The Aetherius Society has published many texts of the Transmissions and also produces a full range of cassette tapes explaining the theory and practice of Cosmic metaphysics. The society organizes lectures, seminars, and other events to publicize the Teachings of the Cosmic Masters.
Address:  6202 Afton Place
Hollywood, CA 90028 U.S.A.
757 Fulham Road
London SW6 6UU
England
Web site:   HYPERLINK http://www.strieber.com   www.aetherius.org
AFR (Air Force Regulation) 190-1  Issued on August 30, 1991, by the Secretary of the United States Air Force to update the official USAF policy on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs):
a. The following statement may be used in response to queries: Project Blue Book, the Air Force study of UFOs, ended in 1969, after 22 years of scientific investigation. More than 12,500 reported sightings were investigated; the vast majorityóabout 95 percentówere explainable. They were caused by such natural phenomena as meteors, satellites, aircraft, lightning, balloons, weather conditions, reflections of other planets, or just plain hoaxes. Of the very few that remained unexplained, there was no indication of a technology beyond our own scientific knowledge, or that any sighting could be considered an extraterrestrial vehicle. Most importantly, throughout Project Blue Book, there was never a shred of evidence to indicate a threat to our national security. Project Blue Book was ended based on these findings, as verified by a scientific study prepared by the University of Colorado, and further verified by the National Academy of Sciences. All of the Project Blue Book materials were turned over to the Modern Military Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, 8th Street and Pennsylvania, Wash DC 20408, and are available for public review and analysis.
 b. Individuals alleging current sighting[s] should be referred, without comment, to local law enforcement officials.
óU.S. Air Force
airship wave of 1896  The first major UFO wave in recorded history took place in 1896 (several years prior to any officially documented flights of airplanes or powered airships of any kind in the United States), beginning in November, with reports mostly confined to the state of California but involving also Washington State and Canada to a lesser degree.
This woodcut appeared in an 1896 newspaper to illustrate the phantom ìairshipî that was seen before its time.
A mystery light was first reported in the night sky over the capitol city of Sacramento on the evening of November 17, 1896. Local newspapers ran such headlines as: A Wandering Apparition, A Queer Phenomenon, and What Was It? It was said that due to a heavy overcast on the evening of the first sighting, very little detail could be observed. The majority of alleged witnesses reported only a light source, but a few were said to have seen, in addition, a dark body of some sort above the luminous point (according to newspaper accounts). The strange flying light appeared a second time, so the story goes, on the evening of November 21st, at which time the public and press are said to have taken the phenomenon much more seriously. Reportedly, witnesses to the second passage included a sizable number of the citizens of Sacramento, but, as before, a dark, cloudy sky masked any detail that would explain how the light was being carried through the atmosphere.
Soon after the light passed out of sight, it was reportedly seen over the city of Folsom, some twenty miles to the west. Later that night, reports of lights in the heavens came in from the San Francisco Bay area.
Unexplained flying lights and the story of the sighting of an airship by one R. L. Lowry prompted a San Francisco attorney to ìdiscloseî that a man had supposedly contacted him some months earlier for legal advice concerning the ìworldís first practical airship,î a craft that the supposed inventor asserted he had nearly completed. Flashing impressive blueprints and boasting of strong financial backing, the inventor convinced the attorney that the airship would soon be operational. The attorney, a George D. Collins, told the press that, in his opinion, the phenomenon in the skies over Sacramento must have been his client conducting nocturnal test flights before making an official announcement of his secret invention. This suggestion, a reasonable one in the minds of many, was given extensive publicity by San Francisco newspapers, stirring up imaginations all over California. Rumors and wild stones soon began to spread. For a while, the .îphantom airshipî was the biggest news story in northern California.
As more reports of strange lights in the sky were tallied, enhancing the mystery, attorney Collins became so tormented by reporters and curious busybodies that he regretted his earlier bragging and fled into hiding.
Cities reporting airship sightings after November 23 included Stockton, Lathrop, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, Red Bluff, Chico, Auburn, San Jose, Modesto, Woodland, Fresno, Visalia, Hanford, Bakersfield, Tulare, Delano, Los Angeles, Redlands, and Anderson.
As to the exact nature of the mystery light, many reports were vague, mentioning only a bright light in the western sky early in the evening, indicating possible confusion with the planet Venus. Reported velocities of the light as it passed overhead were slow by modern standards, and if one considers the testimony of a number of witnesses that the light moved in an undulating fashion, this might indicate that some sightings were due to wind-blown balloons with a lantern attached. Again, some witnesses said they saw something large supporting the light but very few details were given. The most common terms used to describe the ìsupporting structureî were: ìdark body,î ìmisty mass,î ìcigar-shaped,î ìegg-shaped,î and ìbarrel-shaped.î
In spite of the difficulties involved, about a half-dozen reports can be explained satisfactorily. These were the sightings of three strange fights in the heavens a month before the passage of the mystery light (or lights) over Sacramento. There is a good possibility that people were confusing the ìphantom airshipî with the passage of a triple-headed bolide that had crossed the night sky with majestic slowness several weeks previously.
However, all things considered, there were still some puzzling episodes that took place in November 1896:
(1) A fiery object displaying three points of light was spotted resting on the ground near Knightís Ferry, California. Two witnesses, both Methodist ministers, said the thing suddenly took off as they approached, flying away in a shallow climb.
(2) A fast-moving cigar-shaped object surrounded by a shifting luminosity and making small explosions was reported by the captain of a steamboat.
(3) According to hundreds of citizens of Tulare, California, of which fifteen are named in news accounts, something in the night sky came down quite a distance, and then went up and took a straight, quick move westward. Red, white, and blue lights were seen in succession.
4) A resident of Tacoma, Washington, said he watched something strange in the sky over Mount Rainier one night. For over an hour, he said, an object emitted various colored rays, which shot out from the thingís center in every direction like spokes of a wheel. The ìobjectî reportedly moved about with a waving motion, swayed back and forth, and darted from one position to another.
The Canadian press, which reported on the puzzling events taking place in California, seemed to take the airship possibility very seriously, even though one of the most intriguing reports of the year came from Rossland, British Columbia, on August 12, 1896. It told of a strange aerial body that approached the town, paused momentarily above a nearby mountain peak, made several wide circles in the sky, and then sped away on a straight course. The thing was described as a ìluminous ball of fire that glowed amidst a halo of variegated colors.î The object took a quarter of an hour to complete its maneuvers and was watched by many citizens of Rossland.
It. is interesting to note that even back in 1896 the extraterrestrial hypothesis was suggested by some to account for the appearance of the nineteenth-century UFOs. In a letter to the editor of the Sacramento Bee, published in the November 24th issue, one citizen who gave his initials as ìW.A.î stated his conviction that the observed phenomenon could only be due to the visit of a spacecraft from the planet Mars on a mission of exploration. He expressed his belief that the alien ship was made of very light metal and powered by some sort of electrical force, giving the Martian vessel the appearance of a ball of fire in flight. The speed of such an interplanetary craft he imagined to be a ìthousand miles a second.î
Perhaps even more intriguing is this early report of a ìclose encounter of the third kindî: Two men told the Stockton Evening Mail that they had met three ìstrange peopleî on a road near Lodi, California. According to the story, the strange beings were very tall, with small delicate hands, and large, narrow feet. Each creatureís head was bald with small ears and a small mouth, yet the eyes were big and lustrous. Instead of clothing, the creatures seemed to be covered with a natural silky growth. Conversation was impossible because the ìstrange peopleî could only utter a monotonous, guttural, warbling. Occasionally, one of the unusual beings would breathe deeply from a nozzle attached to a bag slung under an arm and in each hand the creatures carried something the size of an egg that gave off an intense light. The weird encounter ended with an attempted kidnap of the two Californians, but failing to overpower the two men, the creatures fled to a cigar-shaped craft hovering nearby, jumped through a hatch, and zoomed away.
The California UFO wave of 1896 was over by December, but in February of 1897 reports of mysterious starlike bodies moving about the skies over western Nebraska marked the beginning of an even bigger UFO wave that would involve the greater part of the American Midwest.
óLoren E. Gross
airship wave of 1897 The California airship reports of November and December 1896, while recounted in some newspapers around the country, attracted relatively little attention in the Midwest and East. The arrival of 1897 saw the end of the California flap, with only isolated sightings at Lodi and Acampo in mid-January. Curiously enough, Delaware farmers, three thousand miles away, also reported airships during January.
By mid-February, unknown craft and mysterious lights in the night skies were reported in many areas of Nebraska. Sightings continued throughout March, with reports now coming from neighboring Kansas as well. To the north, in Michigan, late March brought stories of ìballs of fireî moving through the darkness.
On the night of March 29th, hundreds of people in Omaha watched a large bright light fly over the city, hover briefly, then disappear to the northwest. An even larger audience, numbering in the thousands, witnessed the performance of an aerial mystery over Kansas City three nights later. In Everest, Kansas, the object was described as resembling an Indian canoe, some twenty-five to thirty feet in length, carrying a searchlight of varying colors.
The airships were generally described as cigar-shaped, apparently metallic, with wings, propellers, fins, and other appendages. At night, they appeared to be brilliant lights, with dark superstructures sometimes visible behind the lights.
Skeptics searched in vain for a conventional explanation, blaming the reports on the planet Venus (then brilliant in the evening sky) or the star Alpha Orionis. The reports also inspired practical jokers, who began sending aloft balloons of every description. The situation was further confused by ìenterprisingî reporters who delighted in seeing who could concoct the tallest airship tale for publication.
 As the wave of reports continued throughout April, numerous stories of landed airships were published in newspapers around the country. In many such accounts, the operators of the craft were seen and communications were established by the witnesses. The airship occupants were usually described as normal-looking human beings who engaged their wondering admirers in conversation. They generally claimed to be experimenting with aerial travel, saying their craft had been constructed in secret in Iowa, New York, Tennessee, or some other locality.
There were exceptions to this contact pattern, such as a report by Judge Lawrence A. Byrne of Texarkana, Arkansas, who claimed to have met Oriental-looking occupants of a landed airship. These beings, three in number, spoke among themselves in a foreign language. They beckoned to Byrne, who went aboard the craft and later described some of the machinery inside.
In one Texas case, the airship crewmen claimed to be from an unknown region at the North Pole. A West Virginia report, only discovered in the late 1970s, tells of ìMartiansî aboard a grounded craft.
The people of 1897 did consider extraterrestrial explanations for the airships. Loren Gross, in his entry on the California events of 1896, has referred to a letter, published in the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee of November 24, 1896. This was the first ìMartianî speculation, but others followed. The Colony (Kans.) Free Press, editorializing on the mystery, thought the airship was ìprobably operated by a party of scientists from the planet Marsî Similar theories of visitors from the Red Planet were mentioned in the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch, the Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial-Appeal, and other newspapers of the period. The concept of life on Mars had already been brought to public consciousness by the research and theories of such astronomers as Percival Lowell and Camille Flammarion. Lowellís ideas of the Martian canals were well known, and Flammarion had speculated on possible communication with the inhabitants of Mars.
Reports of airship sightings continued throughout May of 1897, with an isolated sighting coming from Texas during June. This particular event was noteworthy, as it told of two airships seen at the same time. Sightings of more than one object were very rare, although the airships were seen in widely separated areas on the same day. For instance, on April 15th, at the height of the wave, reports came from ten different towns in Michigan, seven towns in Illinois, and one location each in Iowa and South Dakota. It would be simple enough to quote similar instances for virtually any day in April. Nor were such sightings confined to only four states in one twenty-four-hour period, as in the above example. It should be noted also that any such statistics are based on incomplete research, as the newspaper files of several states remain virtually untouched by investigators.
 Hints of worldwide airship activity during 1897 are contained in reports from Sweden on July 17th, off the coast of Norway on August 13th, and from Ontario, Canada, on August 16th. In late September, an engineer in the town of Ustyug, Russia, observed a ìballoonî with an ìelectric,î or phosphorescent, sheen. As a matter of historical fact, the British and the French were known to have motor-powered balloons by this time, but the American airship reports have never been satisfactorily explained. Aviation historians state that craft such as were reported were not operational in the United States during the late 1890s. Were they, then, extraterrestrial vehicles? The descriptions hardly fit the image of sleek, streamlined spaceships, designed for interplanetary voyages. To say that the airships were from a ìparallel universe,î or some equally esoteric realm, is really no answer, but mere speculation. One is forced to admit that the strangers in the skies of 1897 remain as much of a mystery to us as they were to our ancestors.
óLucius Farish
alien autopsy film  The Roswell crashed-saucer myth has been given renewed impetus by a controversial television program called ìAlien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?î that purports to depict the autopsy of a flying saucer occupant. The ìdocumentary,î promoted by a British marketing agency that formerly handled Walt Disney products, was aired August 28 and September 4, 1995, on the Fox television network. Skeptics, as well as many UFOlogists, quickly branded the film used in the program a hoax.
 ìThe Roswell Incident,î as it is known, is described in several controversial books, including one of that title by Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore. Reportedly, in early July 1947, a flying saucer crashed on the ranch property of William Brazel near Roswell, New Mexico, and was subsequently retrieved by the United States government (Berlitz and Moore 1980). Over the years, numerous rumors, urban legends, and outright hoaxes have claimed that saucer wreckage and the remains of its humanoid occupants were stored at a secret facilityóe.g., a (nonexistent) ìHangar 18î at Wright Patterson Air Force Baseóand that the small corpses were autopsied at that or another site (Berlitz and Moore, 1980; Stringfield, 1977).
UFO hoaxes, both directly and indirectly related to Roswell, have since proliferated. For example, a 1949 science fiction movie, The Flying Saucer, produced by Mikel Conrad, purported to contain scenes of a captured spacecraft; an actor hired by Conrad actually posed as an FBI agent and swore the claim was true. In 1950, writer Frank Scully reported in his book Behind the Flying Saucers that the United States government had in its possession no fewer than three Venusian spaceships, together with the bodies of their humanoid occupants. Scully, who was also a Variety magazine columnist, was fed the story by two confidence men who had hoped to sell a petroleum-locating device allegedly based on alien technology. Other crash-retrieval stories followed, as did various photographs of space aliens living and dead: One gruesome photo portrayed the pilot of a small plane, his aviatorís glasses still visible in the picture (Clark, 1993).
 Among recent Roswell hoaxes was the MJ-12 fiasco, in which supposed top secret government documentsóincluding an alleged briefing paper for President Eisenhower and an executive order from President Trumanócorroborated the Roswell crash. Unfortunately, document experts readily exposed the papers as inept forgeries (Nickell and Fischer 1990).
Sooner or later, a Roswell ìalien autopsyî film was bound to turn up. That predictability, together with a lack of established historical record for the bizarre film, is indicative of a hoax. So is the anonymity of the cameraman. But the strongest argument against authenticity stems from what really crashed at Roswell in 1947. According to recently released air force files, the wreckage actually came from a balloon-borne array of radar reflectors and monitoring equipment launched as part of the secret Project Mogul and intended to monitor acoustic emissions from anticipated Soviet nuclear tests. In fact, materials from the device match contemporary descriptions of the debris (foiled paper, sticks, and tape) given by rancher Brazelís children and others (Berlitz and Moore, 1980; Thomas, 1995).
 Interestingly, the film failed to agree with earlier purported eyewitness testimony about the alleged autopsy. For example, multiple medical informants described the Roswell creatures as lacking ears and having only four fingers with no thumb (Berlitz and Moore, 1980), whereas the autopsy film depicts a creature with small ears and five fingers in addition to a thumb. Ergo, either the previous informants are hoaxers, or the film is a hoax, or both.
Although the film was supposedly authenticated by Kodak, only the leader tape and a single frame were submitted for examination, not the entire footage. In fact, a Kodak spokesman told the Sunday Times of London: ìThere is no way I could authenticate this. I saw an image on the print. Sure it could be old film, but it doesnít mean it is what the aliens were filmed on.î
Various objections to the filmís authenticity came from journalists, UFO researchers, and scientists who viewed the film. They noted that it bore a bogus, nonmilitary codemark (ìRestricted access, AOI classificationî) that disappeared after it was criticized; that the anonymous photographerís alleged military status had not been verified; and that the injuries sustained by the extraterrestrial were inconsistent with an air crash. On the basis of such objections, an article in the Sunday Times of London advised: ìRELAX. The little green men have not landed. A much-hyped film purporting to prove that aliens had arrived on earth is a hoax.î (Chittenden, 1995)
Similar opinions on the film came even from prominent Roswell-crash partisans: Kent Jeffrey, an associate of the Center for UFO Studies and author of the ìRoswell Declarationî (a call for an executive order to declassify any United States government information on UFOs and alien intelligence) stated ìup front and unequivocally there is no (zero!!!) doubt in my mind that this film is a fraud.î (1995) Even arch Roswell promoter Stanton T. Friedman said: ìI saw nothing to indicate the footage came from the Roswell incident, or any other UFO incident for that matterî (ìAlien or Fake?î 1995).
Still other critics found many inconsistencies and suspicious elements in the alleged autopsy. For example, in one scene the ìdoctorsî wore white, hooded anticontamination suits that could have been neither for protection from radiation (elsewhere the personnel are examining an alien body without such suits), nor for protection from the odor of decay or from unknown bacteria or viruses (either would have required some type of breathing apparatus). Thus it appears that the outfits served no purpose except to conceal the doctorsí identities.
American pathologists offered still more negative observations. Cyril Wecht, former president of the National Association of Forensic Pathologists, seemed credulous but described the viscera in terms that might apply to supermarket meat scraps and sponges: ìI cannot relate these structures to abdominal contexts.î Again, he said about contents of the cranial area being removed: ìThis is a structure that must be the brain, if it is a human being. It looks like no brain that I have ever seen, whether it is a brain filled with a tumor, a brain that has been radiated, a brain that has been traumatized and is hemorragicÖ. (Wecht, 1995) Much more critical was the assessment of nationally known pathologist Dominick Demaio who described the autopsy on televisionís ìAmerican Journalî (1995): ìI would say itís a lot of bull.î
 Houston pathologist Ed Uthman (1995) was also bothered by the unrealistic viscera, stating: ìThe most implausible thing of all is that the ëaliení just had amorphous lumps of tissue in ëherí body cavities. I cannot fathom that an alien who had external organs so much like ours could not have some sort of definitive structural organs internally.î As well, ìthe prosectors did not make an attempt to arrange the organs for demonstration for the camera.î Uthman also observed that there was no body block, a basic piece of equipment used to prop up the trunk for examination and the head for brain removal. He also pointed out that ìthe prosector used scissors like a tailor, not like a pathologist or surgeonî (pathologists and surgeons place the middle or ring finger in the bottom scissors hole and use the forefinger to steady the scissors near the blades). Uthman further noted that ìthe initial cuts in the skin were made a little too Hollywood-like, too gingerly, like operating on a living patientî whereas autopsy incisions are made faster and deeper. Uthman faulted the film for lacking what he aptly termed ìtechnical verisimilitude.î
 The degree of realism in the film has been debated, even by those who believe the film is a hoax. Some, like Kent Jeffrey (1995), thought the autopsy was done on a specially altered human corpse. On the other hand, many including movie special effects experts believed a dummy had been used. One suspicious point in that regard was that significant close-up views of the creatureís internal organs were consistently out of focus (ìAlien or Fake?î 1995).
 ìAmerican Journalî (1995) also featured a special effects expert who doubted the filmís authenticity and demonstrated how the autopsy ìincisionsîówhich left a line of ìbloodî as the scalpel was drawn across the alienís skinócould easily have been faked. (The secret went unexplained but probably consisted of a tube fastened to the far side of the blade.)
In contrast to the somewhat credulous response of a Hollywood special effects filmmaker on the Fox program, British expert Cliff Wallace of Creature Effects provided the following assessment:
None of us were of the opinion that we were watching a real alien autopsy, or an autopsy on a mutated human which has also been suggested. We all agreed that what we were seeing was a very good fake body, a large proportion of which had been based on a lifecast. Although the nature of the film obscured many of the things we had hoped to see, we felt that the general posture and weighting of the corpse was incorrect for a body in a prone position and had more in common with a cast that had been taken in an upright position.
We did notice evidence of a possible molding seam line down an arm in one segment of the film but were generally surprised that there was little other evidence of seaming which suggests a high degree of workmanship.
We felt that the filming was done in such a way as to obscure details rather than highlight them and that many of the parts of the autopsy that would have been difficult to fake, for example the folding back of the chest flaps, were avoided, as was anything but the most cursory of limb movement. We were also pretty unconvinced by the lone removal sequence. In our opinion the insides of the creature did not bear much relation to the exterior where muscle and bone shapes can be easily discerned. We all agreed that the filming of the sequence would require either the use of two separate bodies, one with chest open, one with chest closed, or significant redressing of one mortal. Either way the processes involved are fairly complicated and require a high level of specialized knowledge.
Another expert, Trey Stokesóa Hollywood special effects ìmotion designerî whose film credits include The Abyss, The Blob, Robocop Two, Batman Returns, Gremlins II, Tales from the Crypt, and many othersóprovided an independent analysis at CSICOPís request. Interestingly, Stokesí critique also indicated that the alien figure was a dummy cast in an upright position. He further noted that it seemed lightweight and ìrubbery,î that it therefore moved unnaturally when handled, especially in one shot in which ìthe shoulder and upper arm actually are floating rigidly above the table surface, rather than sagging back against itî as would be expected. (Stokes, 1995)
CSICOP staffers (Executive Director Barry Karr, Skeptical Inquirer Assistant Editor Tom Genoni, Jr., and the writer) monitored developments in the case. Before the film aired, CSICOP issued a press release, briefly summarizing the evidence against authenticity and quoting CSICOP Chairman Paul Kurtz as stating: ìThe Roswell myth should be permitted to die a deserved death. Whether or not we are alone in the universe will have to be decided on the basis of better evidence than that provided by the latest bit of Roswell fakery. Television executives have a responsibility not to confuse programs designed for entertainment with news documentaries.î
óJoe Nickell
References
ìAlien or Fake?î Sheffield Star (August 18, 1995).
ìAmerican Journalî (September 6, 1995).
Berlitz, Charles, and Moore, William L. The Roswell Incident (Grosset and Dunlap, 1980; Berkley Books, 1988).
Chittenden, Maurice. ìFilm that ëProvesí Aliens Visited Earth Is a Hoax,î (London) Sunday Times (July 30, 1995).
Clark, Jerome. ìUFO Hoaxesî in Encyclopedia of Hoaxes, Stein, Gordon, ed. (Gale Research, 1993).
Kent, Jeffrey. ìBulletin 2: The Purported 1947 Roswell Film,î Internet (May 26, 1995).
Kurtz, Paul. Quoted in CSICOP press release: ìAlien Autopsy: Pact or Fiction? Film a Hoax Concludes Scientific Organizationî (April 25, 1995).
Nickell, Joe, and Fischer, John F. ìThe Crashed-Saucer Forgeries,î The International UFO Reporter (March/April 1990).
Stokes, Trey. Personal communication, (August 29-31, 1995).
Stringfield, Leonard H. Situation Red: The UFO Siege (Doubleday, 1977).
Thomas, Dave. ìThe Roswell Incident and Project Mogul,î Skeptical Inquirer (July-August, 1995).
Uthman, Ed. ìFoxís ëAlien Autopsyí: A Pathologistís View,î Usenet, sci.med.pathology (September 15, 1995).
Wallace, Cliff. Letter to Union Pictures, (August 3, 1995), quoted in Wallaceís letter to Graham Birdsall, UFO Magazine (August 16, 1995), quoted on ParaNet (August 22, 1995).
Wecht, Cyril. Quoted on ìAlien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?î Fox Network (August 28, and September 4, 1995).
alien gallery  The illustrations that appear on the following four pages represent classic examples of alien beings that have been reported from 1947 to the present. I have researched each case in order to depict these beings as accurately as possible.
The Humanoids (Charles Bowen, et al., 1969) was a useful reference for some of the earlier cases. I have used artistic license only where insufficient information was available to determine exactly what was seen. Whenever possible in occupant cases it is important that the investigators work with illustrators, or with the witnesses themselves, to produce drawings of the alien beings as well as getting detailed verbal descriptions. Only the combination of words and images can give a reasonably complete idea of the physical appearance of the reported beings.
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• ABDUCTION WEB