“The Fantastic Imagination” In the 1970s and ’80s, psychologists led by Josephine Hilgard, and closely followed by Cheryl Wilson and Theodore Barber, became intrigued by what they termed “the fantastic imagination.” They found that as many as 4 percent of Westerners have vivid imaginative fantasies. Further, these people secretly conduct the business of their lives … Read more
The Betty Andreasson Story South Ashburnham lies in the center of Massachusetts, fifty-eight miles northwest of Boston. In 1967, as today, the village had a Little League team, some small restaurants, and a homogeneous white population. Because a larger town, Ashburnham, lay directly to the north, residents made a point to stress South Ashburnham in … Read more
Where Did the Time Go? The notion of “missing time” is a standard abductee complaint. Subjects report, variously, that time seems truncated, compressed, or missing (in chunks) altogether. One normal-life parallel is so-called highway hypnosis, a fugue state caused by fatigue, boredom, daydreaming, or, especially, over-familiarity with one’s route. Commuters often pull into their driveways … Read more
The Three Familiar Types of Abduction Narratives Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), by which the aliens and spacecraft are real, physical objects that come from worlds other than our own. Psychosocial hypothesis, by which behavior (the giving of an account) is cued by the dominant culture, and the biases of abductees. In addition, biases of hypnotists, hypnotherapists, … Read more
Who Are Abductees? The UFO Contact Center International, established in Washington State by certified hypnotist Aileen Bringle in 1978, initially served two functions: as think tank and research center, and as a haven for traumatized abductees. The importance of support groups to survivors of trauma is obvious, and even more obvious when the trauma inspires … Read more
The Alien War Against Personal Liberty Accounts of alien abductions originated in the United States, and continue to come from there more frequently than from any other part of the world. In this, Barney and Betty Hill set a course for the future just as surely as they annihilated assumptions from the past. Because America … Read more
Living Special Lives Barney Hill was African American; at the time of the abduction, he was thirty- nine years old. Betty Hill, forty-one, was Caucasian. When Barney and Betty met in New Hampshire in the mid-1950s, both were nearing the end of what would be their first marriages. Barney and Betty wed in the late … Read more
Unwilling Trailblazers During the first thirty years of the world’s intense postwar interest in UFOs, the objects themselves absorbed the attention of most researchers and laypersons. But UFO investigation grew circular, going round and round with the same syllabus of sightings, close encounters, and unacceptable official explanations. Alien abduction was a longtime staple of pulp … Read more
Helplessness, Pain, and Fractured Memory Since the 1990s, reported abductions of human beings by extraterrestrials have become increasingly common, and in a variety of ways: anecdotally (a wealth of isolated accounts); philosophically (what do they want with us?); sexually (“and then they inserted the probe . . .”); and institutionally (reflecting a common theory that … Read more
Human Gods Finally, a friendly-alien encounter situation that is not about extraterrestrials at all, but is a fundamental—and innocent—misunderstanding of one culture by another. The “cargo cult” phenomenon pivots on a belief among indigenous peoples of Melanesia, dating to the 19th century, that manufactured goods arriving with colonialist explorers were spiritual in origin. People in … Read more
