Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, December 2023
The Complex Layers of the UFO Contact Syndrome
by: Brent Raynes
In the very beginning of my ufological journey, during my early teenage years, I collected all the reports that came my way of strange seeming lights and objects that were reported in our skies, and sometimes close to ground level, or even allegedly on the ground (at least temporarily). Initially, I was reluctant to mess with the occupant reports (especially the contactee variety), as were many others. Certainly, the late retired Marine Major Donald E. Keyhoe, who founded NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon) in Washington, D.C., back in 1956, pushed for reporting on craft descriptions only. The whole "Space Brothers" Adamski era stories seemed too suspicious, with some justification of course, and as ufologist James Moseley stated if a UFO was seen it was okay, but if it landed and a being stepped out of it, it was rather automatically considered lunatic fringe.
Long time astronomical Air Force consultant, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, fell for their appraisal of burned circles on the ground as not being physical evidence of UFO landings but simply teenage boys up to mischief, creating fake landing sites with a match and some gasoline poured on the ground. But after meeting French scientist Dr. Jacques Vallee back in the 1960s and being told about that country's massive wave of landings and occupant encounters that were carefully investigated and considered credible in France in 1954, Hynek realized that maybe it had been an overly cautious move to have followed the USAF's dismissive attitude toward these ground-level events.
When author John Keel came on the scene in the latter part of the 1960s and into the 1970s and undoubtedly drew the ire of the majority of the conservative "nuts and bolts," belief ridden UFO community, he really shook things up. He took seriously the "contactee" scenario and even introduced the "missing time" element of the "alien abduction" phenomenon that was yet to truly bloom, and he introduced an unpopular theory that instead of extraterrestrials (the most popular and favored UFO theory of most ufologists and believers) that instead it was a very clever, deceptive, potentially earth-bound "ultraterrestrial" intelligence that could manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum, known physics, and our very views of reality itself. Eventually, in 1987, a dynamic shift occurred when novelist Whitley Streiber's Communion, which became a New York Times best seller, and Intruders by Budd Hopkins, a New York artist turned ufologist and hypnotist, and suddenly these authors took mainstream media by storm and the UFO subject got a huge boost in popularity. Not only were there ET cruising through our skies but they were landing and abducting humans for medical related studies it seemed. Perhaps even creating a hybrid race! Both Streiber and Hopkins even established their own support networks to presumably help these misunderstood abductees get the help and understanding that they needed, the Communion Foundation and Intruders Foundation respectfully, and thousands of letters and supportive testimony in those letters came pouring into them. Streiber started out claiming he was having vivid memories of alien experiences himself and trying to understand what was happening, initially wavering between the possibility of temporal lobe epilepsy, some form of paranormality, and, of course, ET.
Streiber and Hopkins undoubtedly drew far more attention than John Keel. Unlike the contactee narratives, the alien abduction scenario breathed new life into the mainstream's longstanding and favored proposal (i.e., if it looks like an alien craft occupied by aliens, then by golly it must be extraterrestrial). However, there were those of us who resonated with Keel and Jacques Vallee's sense that the "nuts and bolts" ET perspective was a bit overly simplistic and self-serving. Vallee even stated once that he'd be disappointed if the answer was simply ET! Both came to have disdain for the hypnotic process that became so very widely used in "abductee"/"missing time" cases. (1) Many ufologists came to take courses in hypnosis so that they could themselves offer their experiencers hypnotic assistance to get at the truth. Unfortunately, experts on the subject will tell you that hypnosis is no royal road to truth at all. It can further confabulate the fabric of testimonial acquired memory reconstruction. The subject is too often going to unconsciously tend to try and please the hypnotist. It's a steep and very subjective process to engage in. Although it may help provide further supportive testimony for what the ET mainstream is most receptive to. And that, alas, is where it becomes biased, self-serving, and part of the belief-ridden parade that continues to march on down Mainstream Avenue.
Over my 57 years in this field, I have come upon a large number of ufologists who started out bewildered by something that happened to them personally, so they began to read up on the subject and pretty soon corresponded with people in the field, and before they realized it were drawn into it themselves. I've been a part of two major organizations created to provide support for contact experiencers and, in both cases, they were formed by such individuals. In fact, in one it was a husband-and-wife team initially, who both believed ET was the answer, used hypnosis extensively, although they were open to parapsychological aspects of such alleged encounters. The other organization, though it drew in an impressive number of scientists, two core members responsible were experiencers themselves, and a number of the other scientists involved were too, which I have no problem with whatsoever, although when the term "Extraterrestrial" was used in the title some of us felt for a stated scientific based appraisal and survey of the contact experiencer phenomenon ET automatically implied a bias.
I have no problem with anyone considering extraterrestrial as a possibility, but when researchers anchor themselves to a particular explanation like ET, then they often feel that they have to support that narrative. It can negatively impact the primary effort of science, where objectivity is crucial. The approach should be to first research and investigate the anomalous data, see if extraterrestrial appears to be a clear and valid explanation, and then continue on from there.
An above average number of these experiencers seem to be very susceptible to deep levels of hypnosis. The narrative of many such encounters involves partial amnesia, an awareness of entering an altered stated, peculiar distortions of reality (i.e., an eerie silence, a formerly crowded street becomes empty of human and vehicular traffic, a solid wall can be walked (or floated) through as if it wasn't even there, by both alien and human alike, etc.), psychic phenomena (i.e., most "aliens" seem to speak to the humans telepathically in these accounts, plus they're able to make things appear and disappear, and a good number of these subjects have described poltergeist activity in their homes following close encounters and contact situations). Back in 1971, in correspondence with Keel, he advised me, after I sought his advice in such matters, that to study the UFO contact cases I should familiarize myself with literature on religious phenomena, as well as apparitions, as he felt they were components of the same unusual phenomena as found in the UFO situations. Both Keel and Vallee were deeply interested in and wrote on the similarity of such religious visionary phenomena as Fatima to UFO cases. as well as the centuries old historic literature on "little people," elementals, the Djinn, etc. Vallee's 1969 book Passport to Magonia remains a seminal work.
At a distance it's a strange light or object. But when it comes close, really close, the game often changes and the experiencer may become subject to a powerful shift in consciousness, resulting in a kind of theater of the mind. But who is the projectionist? Or, as the late Rosemary Ellen Guiley used to say, "Who is the Oz behind the curtain?'
At that point, we have to consider normal unconscious influences, fantasy, and/or the Jungian collective unconscious, parapsychological possibilities and influences, and then the big one that some of us do suspect lurking behind the scenes: an interactive intelligence outside of ourselves that nonetheless can enter the deep recesses of our very own consciousness and cover its tracks, doesn't wish to be identified, and effectively keeps us guessing as to just what the hell is happening. While there may be a portion of these reports that involve ET scientists dropping down out of our skies and clumsily crashing from time to time, a major portion of it appears to be something else. There is certainly something quite anomalous and oddball going on, in my judgement, but it seems to be more of a complex, crazy theater of the mind archetypal series of displays and manifestations than anything we can effectively nail down in a real solid and substantial "nuts and bolts" way at this time.
The UFO mystery is a mixed bag of the sublime and the ridiculous. Discerning which is which is a huge challenge. Discerning the truth from surface appearances in the quagmire of ufology may be as reliable as judging reality based on a psychologist's inkblot test.
Reference:
1. From my book John A. Keel: The Man, The Myths, and the Ongoing Mysteries (2019):
Jacques Vallee told me in 2006, “I have studied over 70 abduction cases, in concert with psychiatrists trained in the use of the clinical hypnosis. These specialists were uniformly horrified when I showed them what some ufologists were doing and claiming on the basis of the regressions they were performing. In case after case, it becomes obvious that hypnosis is not a good way to bring back true memories. The psychiatric literature confirms this. In his famous book The Fifty-Minute Hour, Dr. Lindner explains why he considered, and then rejected, the use of hypnosis when asked by the FBI to treat a senior engineer who claimed to travel psychically to other planets. Hypnosis can turn a possible fantasy into an experience that becomes irreversible. I have received pathetic letters from famous UFO abductees asking me to help them find a new form of treatment, because they continue to experience traumatic experiences that do not fit into the rigid abduction model. Unfortunately, these people cannot be re-hypnotized in a professional manner after they have been subjected to the ludicrous process routinely followed in ufology today in the name of 'research.' Thousands of abductees have now been regressed hypnotically, and we know nothing more about the nature of the phenomenon, the alleged craft, or the entities associated with them. I still believe the abduction experience is part of the witnesses' reality, as Dr. Simon told me when we spent two days with Betty and Barney Hill at their place in New Hampshire, but hypnosis, in most cases, is neither the therapy of choice, nor the best way to explore what really happened to them.”
Bob Rickard, founder and editor of Fortean Times, did an interview with Keel in 1992 and discussed with him the hypnotic work being done by Budd Hopkins and others with alien abductees. “They're dealing with the unconscious mind without reckoning on it being a trickster,” Keel pointed out. Rickard asked why the researchers couldn't see that, to which Keel added, “They've been told this a thousand times. I've talked to Budd about this, and he refuses to read a book on hypnosis. This is the man who holds therapy groups for abductees. If they start talking about, say, poltergeist experiences, he stops them. He doesn't want to hear about that. He just wants to hear about the 'Greys.'”
