A
lthough UFOlogists had some warning, few were to realize just how critical this year would prove to be. It was to include the fortieth anniversary of the birth of the UFO mystery and big celebrations were planned - including a major international conference in Washington. But it was to be events on the alien contact front that were to really change the face of the phenomenon for ever.A noted horror fiction writer (whose novels had been turned into movies such as
Wolfen)
announced he was publishing a book for which he had been given a huge advance. At a stroke,G IL\ y
II \ y
I) \ \L\ I \ (�
this had taken UFO writing into the big league. However, the writer, Whitley Strieber, was not producing a new novel. He claimed that his story would tell the absolute truth about his own alien abduction.
It was a copy of my 1985 book
(Science and
the UFOs)
that had provided this celebrated writer with a key. My down-to-earth book was based on an article inNew Scientist
magazine and dealt sensitively with abductions via an archetypal case. It also included the early stages of Budd Hopkins' research -- even though he had then published little outside UFOlogy.The image of the 'gray' alien came to dominate alien-contact stories during 1 987. This sketch by a witness depicts the figure he saw in his bedroom inspecting his bedroom alarm. As a very practical man, he noted that it was not an hallucination because he had to screw up his eyes to see the figure - being shortsighted and not wearing spectacles at the time.
A t i E \ S o H
If the impact of Whitley Strieber's book was not dramatic enough, a popular television soap opera,
Dynas(J'
(and its spin-off,The Coi�)'S),
ensured that millions more around the world saw the reality that underpins the abduction phenomenon. One of their major characters, Fallon Colby, was spacenapped and the plot then followed the aftermath as she was probed by psychologists, suffered emotional trauma and was eventually regressed to reveal the truth.This opened up the phenomenon to a whole new audience of people who would not normally be interested in UFOs or read Strieber's book. It was fascinating to see how its producers assumed that all abductions were alike. For example, Strieber had mentioned a smell of cinnamon connected with the aliens. This had not been reported before, but
Dynasty
included it. Following the television series, some cases referred to aliens smelling of cinnanwn and investigators faced a dilemma. Was this a new clue uncovered by Strieber and now reinforced by theDynasty
fiction? Or had a hoaxer copied Strieber's story and, like the television series, imagined that this feature would make their contact more credible?Even more important was the fact that the series dran1atized the scene where Fallon was spacenapped, showing her walking up a ramp into the landed UFO. This had great impact for the viewers and is precisely the sort
Strieber was given my book as a Christmas present, but he reacted in unexpected terror when reading it and peculiar images in his mind suddenly slotted into place. Throughout his life there had been oddities and time lapses. lie had also recently been taken from his weekend residence in New York State and medically probed in a very painful fashion by little beings with dark black eyes and pointed chins.
After recognizing that these '\isions' might be real, Stricber went to sec Hopkins, who lived ncar by in Manhattan. Hypnosis followed and within a year his blockbuster was written.
This case stirred up intense debate inside the UFO community. Striebcr did not have a good
1 9 8 7 : S PA C E � A P P E D I l l
of scene that all science-fiction films depicting alien contact tend to include. It is also likely to be what someone inventing an abduction would conj ure up to add to the drama. Unfortunately, in real abduction stories, it almost never happens.
The few cases where entry into the UFO is remembered are atypical ones, like Alf Burtoo's 'alien rejection·. Research into 700 well-recorded abductions by University of Indiana folklorist, Dr Eddie BulJard, had proved this by 1987. He had set out to show that these tales were a space age myth and was shocked to learn that they did not follow any of the rules of mythology. What he called doonvay amnesia this inability to recall being taken into the UFO - was a significant clue that suggested to Bullard that abductions were more like reality than myth.
Experiments by Alvin Lawson in California and myself in the UK soon verified this. When asked to imagine abductions, eight out of ten witnesses told of being led aboard the UFO and came up with a wide range of types of alien, including the reptiles of recent tele,ision and movie lore. When they were asked to describe their memories of allegedly real abductions, under one in ten recalled entering the UFO and more than nine out of ten involved just the two highly consistent alien types - the tall, blond ones and the grays.
rapport \\ith some researchers for a variety of reasons. Both myself <md Hopkins were two of those researchers, although I found him a f•L�cinating num to talk \\ith and recognized that he wa� much more adv<mccd in his thinking than most of his American peers.
To numy people, Stricber's story seemed too good to be true. lie was widely attacked, especially in the very sceptical British media. I suspect his nL�e is highly significant •md the \iews he expressed in later books were quite sophisticated. But at other times they reflected the confusion that this mystery creates. This is not surprising; a man as intelligent as Stricbcr must feel sw•m1pcd by these phenomena.
1 1 2 A L I E N C O N T A C T
Writing a later novel o n the Roswell crash certainly added to the difficulty some UFOlogists faced in understanding the author. But, like it or not, he had become a major player, even though he disassociated himself from much of the UFO community and expressed disenchantment with how it was dealing with the abduction phenomenon. Some of this criticism was actually very appropriate. Strieber reminded people that UFOlogy is built out of witnesses who count as people - not just as fodder for theories invented by CFOlogists from their stories.