Book Reviews Perceptions Magazine, June 2025
Forbidden Knowledge:
A Personal Journey from Alien
Abduction to Spiritual Transformation
by Kathleen Marden, co-author of Captured!
Imprint: Independently published
2023, 268 pages, Paperback, U.S. $1895
ISBN: 9798860388901
Reviewed by Brent Raynes
The niece of the most well-known "alien abductee" Betty Hill, Kathleen Marden herself is an experiencer and a dedicated and compassionate UFO researcher who co-authored with Stanton Friedman Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, along with Science Was Wrong, and Fact, Fiction, and Flying Saucers, in addition to The Alien Abduction Files with Denise Stoner. She was the director of Field Investigator Training and the founder and director of the Mutal UFO Network's Experiencer Resource Team from 1991 till 2023. Over the years, Kathleen immersed herself in three studies of nearly 5,000 experiencers [Marden-Stoner, Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences, and MUFON ERT], Recently, I happened to have the good fortunate of running into Kathleen once again, this time at Arkansas's Eureka Springs UFO Conference where naturally I had to add an autographed copy of this latest book to my library.
It contains a unique mind-bending series of personal experiences of what we know as alien contact with fellow researchers/experiencers who joined in with these most intriguing interactive encounters with what called itself the Council of Eight, allegedly consisting of six species of protectors of our quadrant of the Milky Way, members of the Galactic Federation.
Though it sounded like material for Star Trek or some such science fiction creation, Kathleen could only report upon what experiences she and others were sharing and undergoing. “This knowledge lent incredulity to my already apprehensive feelings,” she wrote. “Again, I felt guarded but realized that I had already jumped from the frying pan into the fire.”
Each of us engaged in this perplexing and challenging field are obligated to try our best to follow the evidence no matter how it may conflict and challenge us at times with our preconceived beliefs and notions that we have previously held dear. Clearly Kathleen knows the score here and understands how all of this sounds to those outside the circle of her own ongoing experiences. She’s knowingly opened herself to critical and hurtful responses from a good number within the UFO community she has long served. To me, it seems quite obvious. She truly believes in her experiences and as she has done repeatedly over the years, her job is to inform, to the best of her ability, what she perceives and concludes to be factual. After all, Kathleen has long held a sterling reputation for truthfulness and credibility in this field.
UFOlogy is known for producing confounding high strangeness and it’s up to each of us in this community to strive to be as fair, discerning, and objective as we possibly can be. I encourage all of you to read this volume thoughtfully and imagine what it would be like to find yourself in a similar situation, if you haven’t already.
