Message #4834 "ParaNet Abduction Echo" (SENT)
Date: 25-Apr-93 12:31
From: John Powell
To:   All
Subj: Abduction Article, 3/4
Previous Reply is Message #4431.  Next Reply is Message #5012

     "It's very hard to think of this as some wonderful, new adventure,"
Mr. Hopkins says.
     Maybe an extraterrestrial species is introducing a desirable human
characteristic into its own evolutionary cycle, say the researchers.
Maybe it is reducing the difference between its species and ours.  Maybe
it is seeding another planet, or maybe it has a plan completely beyond
the comprehension and imagination of the human brain.
     Yeah, right, say the skeptics.  The astronomer Carl Sagan says that
he is open-minded to the prospect of intelligent beings living in space,
but he doesn't believe they're sneaking into bedrooms and tormenting
Earthlings.
     "Tell me," he says, "which is more plausible:  We're victims of a
massive invasion of alien sexual abusers, or people are seeing things
that just aren't there?"
     Although abduction claims began surfacing nearly half a century
ago, not one shred of indisputable physical evidence has surfaced, say
Mr. Sagan, who recently wrote an article for "Parade" magazine debunking
those claims.
     "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," he says.
"Somebody telling a story is not evidence, even many people telling the
same story isn't good enough.  They're people that's the point, and
people intrinsically have certain fallibilities."
     Abduction accounts may say something about how the brain works, or
how people can be deluded, or even how religions begin, he says from his
office at Cornell University.  But they say nothing, he says, about
skinny, large-eyed aliens kidnapping humans.
     "There's a better chance of your getting hit on the head by one of
Santa's reindeer than of you being abducted," says Philip J. Klass, a
retired senior editor and now contributing editor at "Aviation Week &
Space Technology" magazine.  "I will say, slightly tongue-in-cheek,
there is better evidence of the existence of mermaids and Irish
leprechauns."
     Mr. Klass, who lives in Washington, says he has tried to verify UFO
cases for nearly 30 years and has not found a credible one.  In his 1989
book, "UFO Abductions:  A Dangerous Game," Mr. Klass contended that
people who believe they've been abducted by aliens need treatment by
qualified psychotherapists, not UFO "cult gurus."
     Robert A. Baker, a retired professor of psychology at the
University of Kentucky, has written derisively about abduction stories.
He says some are simply fabrications or the recounting of stories
gleaned from books or movies, while others are products of psychological
disorders.
     The stories may be repressed memories of childhood sexual or
physical abuse surfacing in disguised form, he says.  Or they may be the
type of vivid, realistic dreams occurring as a person falls asleep or
wakes up -- hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations.  And, he says,
some people who believe they've been abducted may be fantasy-prone or
psychologically disturbed.
     "Anyway," Dr. Baker says, "if this phenomena were as common as
Hopkins and Jacobs would have us believe, the sky would be filled with
spacecraft abducting people back and forth.  UFOs would be stacked up
like aircraft coming in at O'Hare."
     The believers and skeptics counter each other point by point.  Both
sides publish newsletters buttressing their claims. And both produce
mental-health specialists who pronounce judgment on the sanity of the
victims.
     But in the end, what are we left with?  The stories.
     Lea started out thinking she was dreaming or hallucinating. After
coming to believe she had been abducted, she contacted a representative
of the Mutual UFO Network, an international group interested in UFOs.
She was referred to Bob Oechsler, a former National Aeronautics and
Space Administration mission specialist who lives in Edgewater in Anne
Arundel County.
     Mr. Oechsler, who became interested in UFOs as a boy, is intrigued
with the technology of crafts from outer space:  How do they get here
from there?  For the past two years he has researched UFO sightings full
time.  On his front door is a brass plaque that reads:  UFOs _are real_!!!
     Mr. Oechsler is starting a support group for abductees, one of
dozens forming across the country, he says.  About 30 people, including
Lea, have signed up.
     Bruce S. Maccabee, a research physicist for the Navy, will also
attend.  The Frederick County resident has researched UFOs on his own
for years, and is a longtime leader in UFO research groups, one of
which, the Fund for UFO Research, in Mount Rainier, Md., sponsored the
abduction conference at MIT.
     At the organizational meeting of Mr. Oechsler's support group, Dr.
Maccabee told the participants:
     "This subject is so weird, so misunderstood.  All we can do is hold
your hand and make you realize you're not alone."
     That would be a relief to Lea.
     Strange things continue to happen to her.  Not long ago, she says,
while visiting friends in the West Virginia mountains, she was floated
out of the house, taken aboard a spaceship and handed a baby.
     It was a boy, with leathery skin, a thin neck and an oversized head
with patches of red hair.  It had huge eyes, she says, but they weren't
coal black like those of the adult aliens.  They were blue.
     "I don't know why, and I know this sounds strange," Lea says in a
voice trembling with emotion, "but as soon as I held him in my arms, I
knew he was mine.  I felt like I was his mother."