Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge/Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge.iso/UFO/ETHICS.UFO

Text File | 1990-11-04 | 27KB | 400 lines

                          ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF
                        THE UFO ABDUCTION PHENOMENON

                              by Budd Hopkins


      It is in the nature of human psychology that an event as dramatic as
contact with extraterrestrial intelligence can not be thought about _neut-
rally_, without deep-seated hopes and preconceptions. Most of us, I'm cer-
tain, prefer to believe that extraterrestrials would arrive on our planet
as friendly, helpful beings, eager to share their technology and to aid us
in solving our social and ecological problems. Upon this basic and very
human wish certain people have erected a powerful set of interpretations
of modern-day UFO reports. These hopes, hardened into a kind of theology,
can be described as a modern religion, willed into existence after the de-
cline of our more traditional deities. After all, we have been told more
than once that God is dead.

      On the other hand, our recent wars, both hot and cold, and the ven-
ality and deceit we have seen in many of our political leaders have also
inspired an undercurrent of pessimism, global in extent. International
chaos, terrorism and governmental incompetence have trained many of us
always to expect the worst. And so, if the majority opinion, or hope, is
that extraterrestrials would arrive as space brothers, a strong minority
opinion fears the opposite - that we would find ourselves taken over by a
band of inter-galactic conquerors. Our popular science fiction films spell
out these hopes and fears quite literally: We have the kindly Space Broth-
er, Michael Rennie, stepping out of a gleaming spaceship to help earth-
lings through their troubles, and then we have the Body Snatchers out to
do us all in. I've dwelt on these basic attitudes about extraterrestrial
contact for an important reason: when we examine reports of actual con-
tact, especially as revealed in UFO abduction encounters, we must always
bear in mind our basic preconceptions and how they might influence our
reading of these events.

      After twelve years of experience investigating the abduction phenom-
enon, I will not deal with the validity of such reports in this paper.
I've considered this issue elsewhere, in two books and a number of artic-
les, so we will here assume that the abductees I've worked with, more than
a hundred and fifty in all, are telling the truth as they best recall it.
I will concentrate instead on what information we can derive from their
accounts that might bear on the question of the moral nature of the UFO
phenomenon. Are the UFO occupants, as they are described by their abduc-
tees, good or bad, friends or foes, or is the situation just not reducible
to such terms? The very first step, obviously, is to analyze what the ab-
ductees say they feel about their captors, and that, every investigator
knows, is a complex task. My twelve years' experience leads me to a dis-
tinct conclusion: each abductee's emotions are invariably intense and many-
levelled - and usually mutually contradictory.

      First of all, confrontations with UFO occupants are generally experi-
enced as frightening, so fear, at some point, is an almost universal ele-
ment in the emotional mix. Second, there is a kind of awe or wonder at the
power and seeming magic of the aliens' technology. This often translates
itself into a kind of affection, even love, that an abductee might feel
for the particular captor with whom he or she senses a special relation-
ship. On the other side of the same coin there is an almost universal ang-
er - verging sometimes on hatred - that abductees feel towards their abduc-
tors because of their enforced helplessness, their sense of having been
used, involuntarily, and even, upon occasion, of being made to suffer
severe pain. According to every broad study of the abduction literature
that I know of, and Edward Bullard's is the most authoritative [ParaNet
members - see FUFOR.ORD], fear, awe, affection and anger are the basic
emotional components of almost every UFO abduction experience. It is safe
to say, then, that _powerful and confusing_ emotions follow such experi-
ences, and that after their encounters abductees do not believe they have
been taken either by purely malevolent foes nor by selfless, angelic space
brothers. The situation is far too complicated for either simplistic read-
ing.

      During the past eight years I have conducted an informal support
group for UFO abductees in the New York City area, and have kept in touch
with many others in various parts of the country. These circumstances have
allowed me to observe a number of men and women over an extended period of
time, and to see various patterns of response to their abduction experi-
ences. The weight of each component in the standard emotional mix varies
widely from individual to individual, and also changes with time within
any one psyche. But the basic components always seem to remain, subtly at
odds with one another, in each abductee. Several things must be kept in
mind, however, as we study the abductee's emotional charts. First, when
one is abducted, he or she is in something of an altered state, not unlike
a hypnotic trance. The abductee is _controlled_ by the abductors and his
or her behavior is in many ways far from normal. The abductee  may be told
things, shown things, that may not be true or "real." So in this context
we must consider the abductee's occasional affection for his or her capt-
ors. Psychologists have shown that this phenomenon, the "Patty Hearst"
syndrome, all too often appears in earthly kidnapping experiences. There-
fore in evaluating the four emotions commonly described by UFO abductees,
three seem appropriate but one must be dealt with warily. Fear is some-
thing one would surely expect if the aliens actually look and act as re-
ported by their captives. Feelings of awe at the alien's technological
magic, an emotion that again seems appropriate. Anger, often to an extreme
degree, seems to be most abductee's reaction to being paralyzed and con-
trolled by their captors. The physically invasive and sometimes painful
operations performed upon them underline this response, which is often
deepened because the UFO occupants usually refuse to discuss the purpose
of these disturbing procedures. One has no choice except to submit to
needles, lights, knives, "scanners" and so forth, with no power to protest
or refuse. "I feel like a lab rat," one abductee said, her anger entirely
appropriate to her situation. It is the odd affection abductees often re-
port feeling for their captors that seems suspect, under the circumstan-
ces. Is this feeling possibly an artificial emotion, induced telepathic-
ally through some kind of quasi-hypnotic control? Is it a version of the
"Patty Hearst" syndrome? Is it a genuine reaction? Obviously no one can
answer these questions satisfactorily, but it seems to me that affection
is the one common abduction response that must be viewed with suspicion.

      When one tries to tally up the pros and cons of an abduction experi-
ence as it immediately and visibly affects human emotion, it can be said
that two reactions are essentially negative, or even damaging. Fear and
anger, which are often felt deeply as terror and hatred, are surely dis-
ruptive of anyone's life. The sense of awe, while basically neutral and
sometimes tinged with fear, may enhance one's world view, and thus con-
tribute positively. The fourth and most suspect emotion, affection for
one's captors, if genuine, is a positive one. So the emotional "score" af-
ter an abduction experience does not support either a simple "Space Broth-
er" or "Body Snatcher" interpretation. Judging purely by obvious surface
reactions we are still in ethically mixed territory, though to me and to
many abductees the negative effects seem more powerful than the positive.

      Moving away from the patterns of the abductees' immediate emotional
responses, we can evaluate the ethical conten