2. EVALUACIÓN DEL ESTADO AMBIENTAL ACTUAL
2.4. Evaluación del estado actual. Principales presiones, actividades e impactos
2.4.5. Evaluación integrada del estado actual de los indicadores y el descriptor
T
hat the phenomenon had changed dramaticallv since 1987 was alreadv suggested by
cases such as Gulf Breeze and
Ilkley Moor. When a further major barrier fell in 1989, the new trend became obvious.At last there was a clear example of an 'observed' abduction, the sort of case that all critics of the literal reality of alien contact were demanding. As they said, if a bank was robbed but there was no money missing and no passers by in the street saw the getaway car, would we believe that a crime had occurred based on just testimony of the teller alone? Yet this was the position of the abduction mystery. Hundreds of people were being spacenapped, they claimed, from bedrooms and cars. Yet nobody in the room or in another car driving past had seen the abandoned car from which the person had been snatched, or better still, had observed the alien kidnap as it happened.
The event that came to be dubbed the 'Manhattan Transfer' overcame this serious omission in the data and the nature of its observers provided further evidence that alien contact had entered a new dimension.
This case unfolded on November 30 in a high-rise apartment block in downtown Manhattan. The victim was Linda Napolitano, a woman who had already contacted local researcher Budd Hopkins to describe previous meetings with small, gray aliens with large black eyes. Hopkins had enrolled her in his new self help therapy group. But her latest encounter had been terrifying; Linda had awoken to find grays in her bedroom. She had tried to fend them off by throwing a pillow at them, but she was then paralysed and awoke inside the white room undergoing medical tests.
Subsequent hypnosis brought out more
terrifying details. Linda saw herself being floated through the apartment window in a beam of light and surrounded by the levitating forms of several small aliens. She recalled entering the CFO, even though this is exceptionally rare. When she was returned to her bedroom an unknown time later, her husband and children had been 'switched off' (in deep trance-like sleep states) and had not noticed she had been missing.
About 18 months after Linda told her story, Hopkins received the first of several contacts (by letter and tape) from two security guards. They were unburdening themselves of a terrible trauma. So deep had they been affected that one had suffered a nervous breakdown.
The men had been in a car protecting a 'world leader statesman' and driving him to the heliport after a meeting. They had stopped in the street (it seems as if subconsciously motivated to do so) and all three had witnessed Linda being floated out of her apartment above sleeping Manhattan, then transferred into the UFO, which promptly flew off under the nearby river and disappeared. They did not know who the woman was, of course, but told Hopkins they could pinpoint her apartment. The guard was wrestling with his conscience and had parked often by the building wondering if he could summon up the courage to see if the abducted woman was alive or dead.
Budd Hopkins did not let on that he already knew of Linda's story, but encouraged the guard to go and see her. Hopkins then shared this amazing news with the abductee so that when the man arrived sheepishly at Unda's door, she was expecting his visit! Needless to say, he was stunned.
This case has created huge controversy. It seemed too good to be true for many people,
\V I T \E S S S 1 11 11 0 ll T
The self-help therapy group set up in New York by Budd Hopkins was one of many that had been created. It followed ideas mooted by Whitley Strieber and noted that UFOlogists were not catering well for the emotional needs of spacenap victims. In Britain, BUFORA helped to create a 'Witness Support Group' and these gatherings allowed close-encounter victims to share their intimate experiences with others who had been through the same trauma \vithout fear of their stories appearing in the tabloids. They operated not unlike 'Alcoholics Anonymous', based on the principle that people need support and that such support is best offered by others who have found ways of coping with the abduction entering their lives.
However, doubts were growing about the constant use of regression hypnosis to 'bring out memories' from the subconscious of abductees. Witnesses expected this to help them, but often faced more trauma from the uncertainties that these new memories brought (not to mention their frequently horrific nature) . Hypnosis appealed to UFOlogists because it seemed to provide
1 9 H 9 : T E L L T i l E \V O H L D 1 1 7
deeper stories of alien contact and so much material for new books. Although unqualified researchers were using it daily - sometimes even on small children - witnesses rarely felt better for it. However caring and well intended these experiments were, the witness was forced to live with the aftermath of the regression.
Psychologists were worrying about long-term consequences from hypnosis and one British man had an epileptic seizure during a hypnosis session, at which no medically qualified person was in attendance. So, BCFORA decided to act. It had already imposed strict requirements in its code of practice regulating the activities of its investigators. Now they voted for a moratorium banning the use of hypnotic regression altogether. Only Scandinavian UFO groups followed suit, \vith UFO Sweden issuing its own moratorium. Else,vhere in the world the use of hypnosis continued to spiral out of control and the outcome was a wave of thousands of apparent new abductions - most of which relied hea\ily on the dubious 'memory' (or 'fantasy') dispute that emerged \ia rampant hypnotic testimony.
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especially when the guards resisted a meeting with Hopkins and the 'world leader' stayed silent. Speculation mounted that the encounter had been set up for this famous person to see. Indeed, as Hopkins told me three years later, 'This man is of such importance and has such credibility that if he were to tell the world what he saw that night, then the tntth about alien contact would be established for all to see'.
Who this 'third man' was still remains a secret, although rumours arc rife that it was a former secretary of the United Nations, jmier Perez de Cuellar. De Cuellar has never confirmed this story, despite being �L'iked to do so. Officially, he was 'not in New York' on the night in question.
Other independent witnesses have since come forward, including a wonum dri\ing on the Brookl)n Bridge who says she also saw Linda being floated away. Some find it
suspiciOus that all these people contacted Hopkins; his fame \\ithin �ew York however. docs not make it improbable. An independent study by three L'FOlogists found that there were no witnesses from a busy news building opposite the apartment block despite their \iew that many should have seen what the three men in the car and woman on the bridge supposedly did. Hopkins has responded thoughtfully �md in 1996 published a long-awaited book devoted to the GL'ie that h�L'i been dubbed �" 'the big one·.
If this case is proved genuine and if the ·world leader' docs talk, then it \\ill be another example of the bold new direction taken by the phenomenon. Nobody disputes Budd Hopkins' integrity and no damning e\idence on the honesty of other major players has been found, but many L'FOiogists arc hedging their bets before they commit themselves to this amazing close encounter.
1 1 8 A U E � C O � TA C T
Circular logic
Alongside the first news of this remarkable case, the crop circle phenomenon in Britain also took extraordinary new leaps forward. For a decade, simple circles and patterns had been forming in crop fields around Hampshire and Wiltshire as well as other rare examples around the world. But in the summers of 1 989 and 1990, two things happened that turned a minor mystery into the talk of the planet.
Firstly, the phenomenon caught the imagination of the world thanks to a book called