The Controllers

IV. Abductions

Press and public now regard abductees as tiny curiosities, yet science, for the most part, still banishes their tales to the domain of the damned, as Charles Fort defined damnation. So too with claimed victims of mind control. The Voice of Authority tells us that MKULTRA belongs to history; like Hasdrubal and Hitler, it threatened once, but no more. Anyone insisting otherwise must be silenced by glib rationalization and selective inattention.

Yet these two topics — UFO abductions and mind control — have more in common than their mutual ostracization. The data overlap. If we could chart these phenomena on a Venn diagram, we would see a surprisingly large intersection between the two circles of information. It is this overlap I seek to address.

Note, however, that I can not address all the other interesting and important issues raised by the UFO abduction experience. For example, I have written, admittedly rather vaguely, of nasal implants reported by abductees — the sort of detail which might place an account in the “high strangeness” category, and of course, a detail central to my thesis. But what percentage of the percipients speak of such implants? A truly scientific analysis would provide a figure. Unfortunately, I haven’t the resources to compile a sufficiently large abductee sample from which one could draw statistics. Nor can I make an over-arching qualitative analysis, measuring the value of “high strangeness” reports against other abductee claims. All I can do is note the available literature, and leave the reader to wonder, as I do, whether the compilers of that literature concentrated on exceptional cases or were biased in favor of the less fantastic abductee accounts. I have supplemented readings of the abduction literature with my own interviews with percipients — which, since abductees tend to know other abductees, can give a surprisingly wide view of the phenomenon. This view has been broadened still further by my talks and correspondence with other members of the UFO community.

Of course, we must recognize the difference between testimony and proof. No one can state definitively that abduction reports have a basis in objective reality (however misperceived). Ultimately, all we have are stories. Some of these stories may be of questionable veracity; others may be contaminated by investigator bias; many are insufficiently detailed. No one research paper can resolve all abduction controversies, and many necessary battles must be fought on other fields.

Still, the testimony won’t go away — and we certainly have enough to allow for comparisons. I maintain that an unprejudiced overview of abduction reports in the popular press and the less-familiar material on mind control will demonstrate a striking correlation. Once other abduction researchers have been educated in the ways of MKULTRA (and this paper is intended as an introductory text) they may note a similar pattern. If so, we can then begin to write a revisionist history of the phenomenon.

The abduction enigma contains within it sub-mysteries that slide into the mind control scenario with surprising ease, even elegance — mysteries which fit the E.T. hypothesis as uncomfortably as a size 10 foot fits into a size 8 shoe. As we have seen, the MKULTRA thesis explains the reports of abductee intracerebral implants (particularly reports involving nosebleeds), unusual scars, “telepathic” communication (i.e., externally induced intracerebral voices) concurrent with or following the abduction encounter, allegations that some abductees hear unusual sound effects (similar to those created by the hemi-synch and cognate devices), haywire electronic devices in abductee homes, personality shifts, “training films,” manipulation of religious imagery, and missing time. Needless to say, the thesis of clandestine government experimentation readily accounts for abductee claims of human beings “working” with the aliens, and for the government harassment that plays so prominent a role in certain abductee reports.

Let’s look at some more correlations.

The Hill Case and the “Advanced” Aliens

Earlier, I asked, “Do the aliens also watch black-and-white television?” in reference to their alleged use of old-fashioned, Terra-style brain implantation devices. Abduction accounts abound in other examples of alien “retro-technology.” The most striking example can be found in the Betty and Barney Hill incident, the details of which are too well-known to recount here.[156] As we have already glimpsed during our discussion of the Rex Niles affair, the Hills’ “interrupted journey” abounds in data which, taken together, permits the construction of an alternative explanation.

At one point during the alleged UFO abduction, the “examiners” inserted a needle in Betty Hill’s navel, telling her that this practice constituted a test for pregnancy.[157] Some ufologists[158] rashly assume that Betty Hill’s “pregnancy test” is evidence of advanced extraterrestrial technology, since her 1961 account pre-dates the official announcement of amniocentesis, which does indeed make use of a needle inserted into the navel. But we now have much less invasive means of testing for pregnancy than amniocentesis. True, amniocentesis is still sometimes used to gather information about the fetus, but the wielders of a highly evolved technology would certainly use other methods of determining the existence of pregnancy in the first place.

Betty Hill’s testimony reminds us of certain other abduction accounts, which contain descriptions of “healings” surprisingly similar to the procedures associated with still-experimental electromagnetic therapy techniques, such as those described in Robert O. Becker’s The Body Electric. For example, abductee Deanna Dube described for me an abduction-related “regeneration” of her long-damaged heart; had she been familiar with Becker’s work,[159] she might have been a bit less rapid to ascribe her healing to otherworldly influences.

Medical breakthroughs often undergo years of testing before their official “discovery.” For some of these tests, finding volunteers presents a major obstacle. If we accept the proposition that the Hill incident originated in an external and objective stimulus, we must then ask ourselves which scenario is more likely: Did Betty Hill encounter human beings using a technique ten years ahead of its time? Or did she encounter aliens (reputedly a “billion years ahead of us”) using science from eons before their time?

One must also ask why Betty Hill’s aliens seemed to have no grasp of basic human concepts (such as how we measure time) — yet they knew enough about us to speak English fluently and had even mastered our slang. Were these real aliens, or humans engaging in theatricals (and occasionally muffing their lines)? For that matter, why did Betty Hill originally recall her abductors as humanoid, only later describing them as aliens?

The Hill case provided a particularly controversial piece of evidence — the celebrated “star map” recalled by Betty Hill under hypnosis. In later years, an Ohio schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish made an ingenious and laudable attempt to discover a match for this map by constructing an elaborate three-dimensional model of nearby star systems; whether she succeeded remains a matter for keen debate.[160] For now, I prefer to avoid taking sides in this dispute and will confine myself to insisting that pro-ET ufologists answer (without resorting to glib ripostes) a point first raised by Jacques Vallee: The map makes no sense as a navigational aid. Vallee notes that, even if we grant the Fish interpretation, the stars are not drawn to scale — and at any rate, alien spaceships would surely be navigated the same way we guide our own spacecraft: via computers and telemetry.[161] The validity of the Fish interpretation is irrelevant; the point is that any such chart would have no value to an interstellar star-farer.

Fish’s work raises other controversies: Allegedly, the map points to Zeta Reticuli as the aliens’ home system and pictures Zeta Reticuli as a single star, a view consistent with scientific opinion of the 1960s. Yet in later years scientists discovered that Zeta Reticuli is binary.[162] Moreover, how did our abductee manage to remember so accurately a complex chart glimpsed in passing? Even allowing for the possibility of increased accuracy of recollection under hypnotic regression, the memory feat here seems remarkable. Consider the circumstances of the abduction: Kafka on hallucinogens couldn’t have conceived of the nightmare vision confronting Betty Hill that night — yet for some reason this particular arrangement of stars emerged as her most intensely-detailed recollection of the experience.

This memory (if not confabulated during regression, a possibility we should always weigh) is comprehensible only as an example of artificially-induced hypermnesia. In other words, Betty Hill was directed to store that chart within her subconscious. The celebrated star map ought to be recognized for what it was: a prop, a seemingly-confirmatory circumstantial detail meant to convince her — and perhaps us — of the reality of her abduction.

The question of motive arises. Why — if my thesis is correct — were these two fairly innocuous individuals chosen for this new variation on the old MKULTRA tricks?

The selection might, of course, have been arbitrary. Or perhaps circumstances now irretrievably lost to history rendered the couple a convenient target. Interestingly, Barney Hill had become acquainted (through church functions) with the head of Air Force intelligence at Pease Air Force Base; perhaps this relationship first brought the Hills to the attention of members of the intelligence community. Arguably, the Hills could have been fingered for a wide variety of reasons; as a general rule, the clandestine services prefer to satisfy a number of itches with one scratch.

In fact, the espionage establishment had one particularly compelling reason to focus on the Hills. Barney Hill (a black man) and his wife held important positions in several civil rights organizations, including the NAACP.[163] The abduction took place during the 1960s, when the NAACP and allied groups fell victim to an increasingly paranoid series of attacks from the FBI and other governmental agencies (under operations COINTELPRO, CHAOS, GARDEN PLOT, etc.).[164] At that time, infiltration of civil rights groups proved a difficult chore; while most left-leaning groups provided easy targets for FBI stooges, the average undercover operative would have had an exceptionally difficult time posing as a black activist. (In 1961, the only black people on the FBI’s payroll were the servants in J. Edgar Hoover’s home.)

In light of these facts, we should recall Victor Marchetti’s anecdote about the cat that the CIA had “wired for sound.” Perhaps an ambitious covert scientist proposed a similar experiment, in which a human being would play the role that had once been assigned to the unfortunate feline? As Estabrooks noted, the ultimate espionage agent would be the spy who doesn’t know he is a spy. Barney Hill, a well-regarded figure with a near-genius-level IQ, was a safe bet to obtain a leadership role in any group he joined; he would have been remarkably well-positioned, had any outsiders wished to use his ears to overhear prominent black organizers in confidential discussion.

Of course, many intelligence professionals would counter this suggestion by reminding us that eavesdroppers on the civil rights movement had plenty of less-flamboyant methods: Bugging, “black bag” jobs, paying for information, etc. The point is valid. But if the technology to create a “human bug” was developed circa 1961 — and there is documentation suggesting that such was indeed the case[165] — the intelligence agencies would surely have wanted to test the possibilities in the field. And considering the expense of such a test, why not conduct the experiment in such a way as to reap the maximum benefits? Why not choose a Barney Hill?

Arms and the Abductee

Budd Hopkins told the following story during his lecture at the Los Angeles “Whole Life Expo.”[166] He considers the case “very good...lots of corroborating witnesses for parts of it.” Though not, presumably, for this part:

Hopkins’ informant, after the by-now familiar UFO abduction, was given a gun by the aliens. Not a Buck Rogers laser weapon — this was something Dirty Harry might have packed.

The abductee was also given someone to shoot. Not a little grey alien — another human being, tied to a chair. The “visitors” told their armed abductee that this captive had done “evil on the earth, and he’s a bad person. You have to kill him.” If the abductee didn’t do as asked, he would never leave the ship.

The captive proclaimed his innocence, and pleaded for his life. The abductee, caught in the middle of all this, became quite upset. (Worth noting: he seems to have at least considered the aliens’ request to shoot someone he had never met.) Ultimately, the abductee turned the gun on the aliens, and said, “Nobody’s going to get shot here.”

According to Hopkins, “The aliens said ‘Fine. Very good.’ They took the gun from him; the man [presumably, the captive] got up, walked away, disappeared, and they went on to the next thing.” Obviously, this little drama had been staged — a test of some sort.

I submit that this surreal incident is incomprehensible as either an example of alien incursion or of “Klass-ical” confabulation. The scenario described here exactly parallels numerous experiments in the hypnotic induction of anti-social action as revealed both in the standard hypnosis literature and in declassified ARTICHOKE/MKULTRA documents. For example, compare Hopkins’ account to the following, in which Ludwig Mayer, a prominent German hypnosis researcher, describes a classic experiment in the hypnotic induction of criminal action:

I gave a revolver to an elderly and readily suggestible man whom I had just hypnotized. The revolver had just been loaded by Mr. H. with a percussion cap. I explained to [the subject], while pointing to Mr. H., that Mr. H. was a very wicked man whom he should shoot to kill. With great determination he took the revolver and fired a shot directly at Mr. H. Mr. H. fell down pretending to be wounded. I then explained to my subject that the fellow was not yet quite dead, and that he should give him another bullet, which he did without further ado.[167]

Of course, if a conservative hypnosis specialist were asked to comment on the above account, he would quickly point out that hypnotic suggestions which work in an experimental situation would not easily succeed outside the laboratory; on some level, the subject will probably sense whether or not he’s playing the game for real.[168] Similarly, a conservative abduction researcher would, in reviewing Hopkins’ material, emphasize the problems inherent in using testimony derived during regression, where the threat of confabulation lurks. I’ll concede both arguments — for the moment — only to insist that they are beside the point. The matter of primary importance, the sticking point which neither Klass nor Hopkins can comfortably confront, is the convergence of detail between Mayer’s hypnosis experiment and the testing event related by Hopkins’ abductee. Why are these two stories so similar? Did the good Dr. Mayer take pupils from Sirius?[169]

Hopkins says he knows of other instances in which abductees found themselves in similar crucibles. So do I.

One person I spoke to can remember (sans hypnosis) being handed a gun inside a ziplock baggy, and receiving instructions that she will have to use this weapon “on a job.” Early in my interviews with her (and with no prompting from me) she recited an apparent cue drilled into her consciousness by the “entities” (as she calls them): “When you see the light, you will do it tonight,” followed by the command, “Execute.” (One can only speculate as to how such commands would be used in the field; we will discuss later the use of photovoltaic hypnotic induction.) Though her personal feelings toward firearms are decidedly negative, she vividly describes periods in her “everyday” life when she feels an uncharacteristic, yet overpowering urge to be near a gun — a quasi-sexual desire to pick one up and touch the metal.[170]

She is not alone. Another has been so affected by gun fever that he became a security guard, just to be near the things.[171] The abductees I have spoken to connect this sudden surge of Ramboism to the UFO experience. But I suggest that the UFO experience may be merely a cover story for another type of training entirely.

One of the primary goals of BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, and MKULTRA was to determine whether mind control could be used to facilitate “executive action” — i.e., assassination.[172]

It isn’t difficult to imagine the media’s reaction if a public figure were murdered by someone acting at the behest of the “space brothers.” Who would dare to speak of conspiracy under such circumstances? The hidden controllers could choose a myth structure that conforms to the abductee’s personality, then pose as higher beings, who would whisper violence into the ear of the percipient. Using this ruse, the trick that scientists such as Ludwig Mayer could perform in the lab might now be accomplished in the field. As Estabrooks’ associate Jack Tracktir (professor of hypnotherapy at Baylor University) explained to John Marks, anti-social acts can be induced with “no conscience involved” once the proper pretext has been created.[173]

“They Will Think It’s Flying Saucers”

Jenny Randles contributes an anecdote from Great Britain which dovetails nicely with this hypothesis.

In 1965, “Margary” (a pseudonym) lived in Birmingham with her husband, who one night told her to prepare her for a “shock and a test.” As Randles describes what she calls a “rogue case”:

They got into his car and drove off, although her memory of the trip became hazy and confused and she does not know where they went. Then she was in a room that was dimly lit and there were people standing around a long table or flat bed. She was out on it and seemed “drugged” and unable to resist. The most memorable of the men was tall and thin with a long nose and white beard. He had thick eyebrows and supposedly said to Margary, “Remember the eyebrows, honey.” A strange medical examination, using odd equipment, was performed on her.

Both the husband and the scientists, using (apparently) hypnotic techniques, flooded her mind with images that, she was told, would be understood only in the future. According to Randles, “At one point one of the ‘examiners’ in the room said to Margary in a tone that made it seem as if he were amused, ‘They will think it’s flying saucers.’” The husband also revealed that he had a second identity. After the abduction, this husband (am I going too far to assume his employment with MI6 or some cognate agency?) left, never to be seen again.[174] Margary did not recall the abduction until 1978.

This affair can only baffle a researcher who insists on fitting all abduction accounts into the ET hypothesis; once we free ourselves from that set of assumptions, explanations come easily. I interpret this incident as a case in which the controllers applied the flying saucer cover story sloppily, or to an insufficiently receptive subject. If my thesis is correct, the UFO “hypnotic hoax” technique would still have been fairly new in 1965, particularly outside the United States; perhaps the manipulators hadn’t yet got the hang of it. The odd comment about the scientist’s eyebrows may refer to an item of disguise donned for the occasion. The unscrupulous hypnotist, unsure about his ability to induce an impenetrable amnesia — and mindful of the price paid by his forerunners in mesmeric criminality[175] — would understandably want to hedge his bets; by indulging in the British penchant for theatrics, he could further protect his anonymity.

A similar incident was brought to my attention by researcher Robert Durant. The relevant excerpt of his letter follows:

“Now I want to turn to a case that I have been investigating for several months. The subject is an abductee. Standard abduction scenario. Twice regressed under hypnosis, the first time by a well-known abduction researcher, the second time by a psychologist with parapsychology connections.

In the course of many hours of listening to the subject, I discovered that she has had close personal contact over a long period of time with several individuals who have federal intelligence connections. She was hypnotized many years ago as part of a TV program devoted to hypnosis. Her abductions began shortly after she attended several long sessions at a laboratory where, ostensibly, she was being tested for ESP abilities. Two other people who were “tested” at this same laboratory have also had abductions. All three were told by the lab to join a local UFO group. During her abductions, the principal alien spoke to the subject in the English language in a normal manner, not via telepathy. She recognized the voice, which was at one time that of her very close friend of yesteryear who was then and is now employed by the CIA. The other voice was that of an individual who works in Washington, has what I will call very strong federal connections as well as a finger in just about every ufological pie, and who just happened to bump into her at the aforementioned laboratory. He also anticipated, in the course of telephone conversations, her abductions. When the subject confronted him about this and the voice, he claimed to be psychic.” (!)[176]

The “ESP” connection is suggestive; the MKULTRA documents betray an astonishing interest on the part of the intelligence agencies in matters parapsychological.

Some researchers would object that examples such as this are rare; most abductions contain no such overt indications of intelligence involvement. But have investigators looked for them? As mentioned in the introduction, a false dichotomy limits much ufological thought; as long as the abduction argument swings between the ET hypothesis and purely psychological theories, researchers will not recognize the relevance of certain key items of background data.

Glimpses of the Controllers

In an interview with me, a northern-California abductee — call him “Peter” — reported an experience which was conducted not by a small grey alien, but by a human being. The percipient called this man a “doctor.” He gave a description of this individual, and even provided a drawing.

Some time after I gathered this information, a southern-California abductee told me her story — which included a description of this very same “doctor.” The physical details were so strikingly similar as to erase coincidence. This woman is a leading member of a Los Angeles-based UFO group; three other women in this group report abduction encounters with the same individual.[177]

Perhaps those three women were fantasists, attaching themselves to another’s narrative. But my northern informant never met these people. Why did he describe the same “doctor”?

One of the abductees I have dealt with insisted, under hypnosis, that her abduction experience brought her to a certain house in the Los Angeles area. She was able to provide directions to the house, even though she had no conscious memory of ever being there. I later learned that this house is indeed occupied by a scientist who formerly (and perhaps currently) conducted clandestine research on mind control technology.

This same abductee described a clandestine brain operation of some sort she underwent in childhood. The neurosurgeon was a human being, not an alien. She even recalled the name. (Note: This is not the same individual referred to above.) When I heard the name, it meant nothing to me — but later I learned that there really was a scientist of that name who specialized in electrode implant research.

Licia Davidson is a thoughtful and articulate abductee, whose fascinating story closely parallels many found in the abductee literature — except for one unusual detail. In an interview with me, she described an unsettling recollection of a human being, dressed normally, holding a black box with a protruding antenna. This odd snippet of memory did not coincide with the general thrust of her abduction narrative. Could this remembrance represent an all-too-brief segment of accurately-perceived reality interrupting her hypnotically-induced “screen memory”? Peter clearly recalls seeing a similar box during his abduction.

Interestingly, Licia resides in the Los Angeles suburb of Tujunga Canyon, a prominent spot on the abduction map: Many of the abductees I have spoken to first had unusual experiences while living in this area. Near Tujunga Canyon, in Mt. Pacifico, is a hidden former Nike missile base; more than one abductee has described odd, seemingly inexplicable military activity around this location.[178] The reader will recall the connection of Nike missile bases to the disturbing story of Dr. L. Jolyon West, a veteran of MKULTRA.

Cults

Some abductees I have spoken to have been directed to join certain religious/philosophical sects. These cults often bear close examination.

The leaders of these groups tend to be “ex”-CIA operatives, or Special Forces veterans. They are often linked through personal relations, even though they espouse widely varying traditions. I have heard unsettling reports that the leaders of some of these groups have used hypnosis, drugs, or “mind machines” on their charges. Members of these cults have reported periods of missing time during ceremonies or “study periods.”

I strongly urge abduction researchers to examine closely any small “occult” groups an abductee might join. For example, one familiar leader of the UFO fringe — a man well-known for his espousal of the doctrine of “love and light” — is Virgil Armstrong, a close personal friend of General John Singlaub, the notorious Iran-Contra player, who recently headed the neo-fascist World Anti-Communist League. Armstrong, who also happens to be an ex-Green Beret and former CIA operative, figured into my inquiry in an interesting fashion: An abductee of my acquaintance was told — by her “entities,” naturally — to seek out this UFO spokesman and join his “sky-watch” activities, which, my source alleges, included a mass channelling session intended to send debilitating “negative” vibrations to Constantine Chernenko, then the leader of the Soviet Union. Of course, intracerebral voices may have a purely psychological origin, so Armstrong can hardly be held to task for the abductee’s original “directive.”[179] Still, his past associations with military intelligence inevitably bring disturbing possibilities to mind.

Even more ominous than possible ties between UFO cults and the intelligence community are the cults’ links with the shadowy I AM group, founded by Guy Ballard in the 1930s.[180] According to researcher David Stupple,

“If you look at the contactee groups today, you’ll see that most of the stable, larger ones are actually neo-I AM groups, with some sort of tie to Ballard’s organization.”[181]

This cult, therefore, bears investigation.

Guy Ballard’s “Mighty I AM Religious Activity,” grew, in large part, out of William Dudley Pelly’s Silver Shirts, an American Nazi organization.[182] Although Ballard himself never openly proclaimed Nazi affiliation, his movement was tinged with an extremely right-wing political philosophy, and in secret meetings he “decreed” the death of President Franklin Roosevelt.[183] The I AM philosophy derived from Theosophy, and, in this author’s estimation, bears a more-than-cursory resemblance to the Theosophically-based teachings that informed the proto-Nazi German occult lodges.[184]

After the war, Pelley (who had been imprisoned for sedition during the hostilities) headed an occult-oriented organization called Soulcraft, based in Noblesville, Indiana. Another Soulcraft employee was the controversial contactee George Hunt Williamson (real name: Michel d’Obrenovic), who co-authored UFOs Confidential with John McCoy, a proponent of the theory that a Jewish banking conspiracy was preventing disclosure of the solution to the UFO mystery.[185] Later, Williamson founded the I AM-oriented Brotherhood of the Seven Rays in Peru.[186] Another famed contactee, George Van Tassel, was associated with Pelley and with the notoriously anti-Semitic Reverend Wesley Swift (founder of the group which metamorphosed into the Aryan nations).[187]

The most visible modern offspring of I AM is Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant, a group best-known for its massive arms caches in underground bunkers. CUT was recently exposed in Covert Action Information Bulletin as a conduit of CIA funds,[188] and according to researcher John Judge, has ties to organizations allied to the World Anti-Communist League.[189] Prophet is becoming involved in abduction research and has sponsored presentations by Budd Hopkins and other prominent investigators. In his book The Armstrong Report: ET’s and UFO’s: They Need Us, We Don’t Need Them [sic.][190], Virgil Armstrong directs troubled abductees toward Prophet’s group. (Perhaps not insignificantly, he also suggests that abductees plagued by implants alleviate their problem by turning to “the I AM force” within.[191])

Another UFO channeller, Frederick Von Mierers, has promulgated both a cult with a strong I AM orientation[192] and an apparent con-game involving over-appraised gemstones. Mierers is an anti-Semite who contends that the Holocaust never happened and that the Jews control the world’s wealth.

UFORUM is a flying saucer organization popular with Los Angeles-area abductees; its founder is Penny Harper, a member of a radical Scientology breakaway group which connects the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard with pronouncements against “The Illuminati” (a mythical secret society) and other betes noir familiar from right-wing conspiracy literature. Harper directs members of her group to read The Spotlight, an extremist tabloid (published by Willis Carto’s Liberty Lobby) which denies the reality of the Holocaust and posits a “Zionist” scheme to control the world.[193]

More than one unwary abductee has fallen in with groups such as those listed above. It isn’t difficult to imagine how some of these questionable groups might mold an abductee’s recollection of his experience — and perhaps help direct his future actions.

Some modern abductees, with otherwise-strong claims, claim encounters with blond, “Nordic” aliens reminiscent of the early contactee era. Surely, the “Nordic” appearance of these aliens sprang from the dubious spiritual tradition of Van Tassell, Ballard, Pelley, McCoy, etc. Why, then, are some modern abductees seeing these very same other-worldly Uebermenschen?

One abductee of my acquaintance claims to have had beneficial experiences with these “blond” aliens — who, he believes, came originally from the Pleiades. Interestingly, in the late 1960s, the psychopathically anti-Semitic Rev. Wesley Swift predicted this odd twist in the abduction tale. In a broadcast “sermon,” he spoke at length about UFOs, claiming that there were “good” aliens and “bad” aliens. The good ones, he insisted, were tall, blond Aryans — who hailed from the Pleiades. He made this pronouncement long before the current trends in abduction lore.

Could some of the abductions be conducted by an extreme right-wing element within the national security establishment? Disagreeable as the possibility seems, we should note that the “lunatic right” is represented in all other walks of life; certainly hard-rightists have taken positions within the military-intelligence complex as well.

Grounds For Further Research

John Keel’s ground-breaking Operation Trojan Horse, written in an era when abductees still came under the category of “contactees,” includes the following intriguing data, gleaned from Keel’s extensive field work:

Contactees often find themselves suddenly miles from home without knowing how they got there. They either have induced amnesia, wiping out all memory of the trip, or they were taken over by some means and made the trip in a blacked-out state. Should they encounter a friend on the way, the friend would probably note that their eyes seemed glassy and their behavior seemed peculiar. But if the friend spoke to them, he might receive a curt reply.

In the language of the contactees this process is called being used... I have known silent contactees to disappear from their homes for long periods, and when they returned, they had little or no recollection of where they had been. One girl sent me a postcard from the Bahama Islands — which surprised me because I knew she was very poor. When she returned, she told me that she had only one memory of the trip. She said she remembered getting off a jet at an airport — she shouldn’t recall getting on the jet or making the trip — and there “Indians” met her and took her baggage...The next thing she knew she was back home again.[194]

Puzzling indeed — unless one has read The Control of Candy Jones, which speaks of Candy’s “blacked out” periods, during which she travelled to Taiwan as a CIA courier, adopting her second personality. The mind control explanation perfectly solves all the mysteries in the above excerpt — save, perhaps, the odd remark about “Indians.”

Hickson and Mendez’ UFO Contact At Pascagoula contains the interesting information that Charles Hickson awakes at night feeling that he is on the verge of re-awakening some terribly important memory connected with his encounter — yet ostensibly he can account for every moment of his adventure.

Hickson also received a letter from an apparent abductee who claims that the grey aliens are actually automatons of some sort — perhaps an unconscious recognition of the unreality of the hypnotically-induced “cover story.”[195] In this light, the film version of Communion — whose screenplay was written by Whitley Strieber — takes on a new interest: The abduction sequences contain inexplicable images indicating that the “greys” are really props, or masks.

Communion and Transformation contain passages detailing what seems to be a hazily-recalled Candy-Jones-style espionage adventure, in which Strieber was shanghaied by a “coach” and a “nurse” (both human beings) who apparently drugged him.[196] Recall the example of Keel’s informants. Moreover, Transformation contains lengthy descriptions of alien beings working in apparent collusion with human beings.

Abductee Christa Tilton also recalls both human beings and aliens playing a part in her experience. Ever since her abduction, she claims, she has been “shadowed” by a mysterious federal agent she calls John Wallis.[197] Christa’s husband, Tom Adams, has confirmed Wallis’ existence.[198]

In his Report On Communion, Ed Conroy — who seems to have become a participant in, and not merely an observer of, the phenomenon — describes harassment by helicopters, which as we have already noted, seems to be quite a common occurrence in abductee situations.[199] Researchers blithely assume that these incidents represent governmental attempts to spy on UFO percipients. But this assertion is ridiculous. Helicopters are extremely expensive to operate, and the engines of espionage have perfected numerous alternative methods to gather information.

After all, we now have a fairly extensive bibliography of FBI, CIA, and military efforts to spy on numerous movements favoring domestic social change. Why have no veterans of CHAOS or COINTELPRO (either victim or victimizer) spoken of helicopters? Obviously the choppers serve some other purpose beyond mere surveillance. One possibility might be the propagation of electromagnetic waves which might affect the perceptions/ behaviors of an implanted individual. (Indeed, I have heard rumors of helicopters being used in electronic “crowd control” operations in Vietnam and elsewhere; alas, the information is far from hard.)

Contactee Eldon Kerfoot has written of his suspicions that human manipulators, not aliens, may be the ultimate puppeteers engineering his experiences. He describes a sudden compulsion to kill a fellow veteran of the Korean conflict — a man Kerfoot had no logical reason to distrust or dislike, yet whom he “sensed” to have been a traitor to his country. Fortunately, the assassination never materialized.[200] But the situation exactly parallels incidents described in released ARTICHOKE documents concerning the remote hypnotic induction of anti-social behavior.

One last speculation:

Renato Vesco’s Intercept But Don’t Shoot [201] outlines a fascinating scenario for the “secret weapon” hypothesis of UFOs. Vesco points out that if these devices are one day to be used in a superpower conflict, the attacking power would be well-served by the myth of the UFO as an extra-terrestrial craft, for the besieged nation would not know the true nature of its opponent. Perhaps, then, one purpose of the UFO abductions is to engender and maintain the legend of the little grey aliens. For the hidden manipulators, the abductions could be, in and of themselves, a propaganda coup.

Final Thoughts

I do not insist dogmatically on the scenario that I have outlined. I do not wish to dissuade abduction researchers from exploring other avenues — indeed, I strongly encourage such work to continue. Nor can I easily account for some aspects of the abduction narratives — for example, any suggestions I could offer concerning the reports of genetic experimentation would be extremely speculative.

But I do insist on a fair hearing of this hypothesis. Criticism is encouraged; that which does not destroy my thesis will make it stronger. I ask only that my critics refrain from intellectual laziness; mere differences in world-view do not constitute a valid attack. God is found in the details.

I recognize the dangers inherent in making this thesis public. New and distressing abductee confabulations may result. I would prefer that the audience for this paper be restricted to abduction researchers, not victims, who might be unduly influenced. However, in a society that prides itself on its ostensibly free press, such restrictions are unthinkable. Therefore, I can only beg any abduction victims who might read this paper to attempt a superhuman objectivity. The thesis I have outlined is promising, and (should trepanation ever provide us with an example of an actual abductee implant) susceptible of proof. But mine is not the only hypothesis. The abductee’s unrewarding task is to report what he or she has experienced as truthfully as possible, untainted by outside speculation.

Whether or not future investigation proves UFO abductions to be a product of mind control experimentation, I feel that this paper has, at least, provided evidence of a serious danger facing those who hold fast to the ideals of individual freedom. We cannot long ignore this menace.

A spectre haunts the democratic nations — the spectre of technofascism. All the powers of the espionage empire and the scientific establishment have entered into an unholy alliance to evoke this spectre: Psychiatrist and spy, Dulles and Delgado, microwave specialists and clandestine operators.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste — and a worse thing to commandeer.

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Selected Bibliography on Mind Control

Acid Dreams, by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain (Grove, 1985). Outstanding work on MKULTRA and drugs.
The Body Electric, by Robert Becker (Morrow, 1985). Important.
The Brain Changers, by Maya Pines (Signet, 1973). Outdated, but an excellent chapter on the stimoceiver and related technologies.
Brain Control, by Elliot Valenstein (John Wiley and Sons, 1973). Highly conservative; outdated; still worth reading.
CIA Papers, compiled by the Capitol Information Associates (POB 8275, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48107). Interesting selection of MKULTRA documents.
The Control of Candy Jones, by Donald Bain (Playboy Press, 1976). Mandatory reading.
Human Drug Testing By the CIA, hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources, United States Senate (Government Printing Office, 1977).
Hypnotism, by George Estabrooks (Dutton, 1957). See especially the chapters on hypnosis in warfare and crime. Some modern experts in clinical hypnosis decry Estabrooks’ work. These “experts” tend to have a history of funding by CIA cut-outs and military intelligence. I suspect they denounce Estabrooks not because his work was shoddy, but because he let the cat out of the bag.
Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification, by the Staff of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee of the Judiciary, United States Senate (Government Printing Office, 1974).
Megabrain, by Michael Hutchison (Ballantine, 1986). The only popular book on modern mind machines.
Messengers of Deception, by Jacques Vallee (And/Or, 1979). Vallee has been criticized, correctly, for including in this book invented “conversations” with a composite character he calls Major Murphy. But the section on cults in this book bears a haunting resemblance to stories I have heard in my own investigations.
The Mind Manipulators, by Opton and Scheflin (Paddington Press, 1978). Conservative, but extremely useful as a reference work.
Mind Wars, by Ronald McCrae (St. Martin’s Press, 1984).
Operation Mind Control, by Walter Bowart (Dell, 1978). The best single volume on the subject. Difficult to find; indeed, this book’s rapid disappearance from bookstores and libraries has aroused the suspicions of some researchers. (Tom Davis Books, POB 1107, Aptos, CA 95001, carries this work.)
Physical Control of the Mind, by Jose Delgado (Harper and Row, 1969). Outdated; still essential.
Project MKULTRA, joint hearing before the Select Committee On Health and Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources, United States Senate (Government Printing Office, 1977).
Psychic Warfare: Fact or Fiction? edited by John White (Aquarian, 1988). See especially Michael Rossman’s contribution.
Psychotechnology, Robert L. Schwitzgebel and Ralph K. Schwitzgebel (Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1973).
The Scientist, by John Lilly (expanded edition: Ronin, 1988). Bizarre — Lilly is an ex-“brainwashing” specialist who claims to be in contact with aliens. Is he controlled or controlling?
The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate”, by John Marks (Bantam, 1978). An invaluable book. However, many people have made the mistake of assuming it tells the full story. It does not.
Were We Controlled? by Lincoln Lawrence (University Books, 1967). Explores possible connections to the JFK assassination. Dr. Petter Lindstrom’s endorsement of this work makes it mandatory reading.
Who Killed John Lennon? by Fenton Bresler (St. Martin’s Press, 1989). Interesting thesis concerning the possible use of mind control on Mark David Chapman. Better in its analysis of Chapman than in its history of mind control. In my own work, I have encountered data which may help confirm Bresler’s theory.
The Zapping of America, by Paul Brodeur. (MacLeod [Canadian edition] 1976). Contains a good chapter on microwave mind control technology.
The important stories of Martti Koski and Robert Naeslund can be obtained by sending three dollars to: Martti Koski, Kiilinpellontie 2, 21290 Rusko, FINLAND. Koski’s description of his “programming” sessions should not be taken at face value: We cannot always trust the perception of someone whose perception has been altered. His research into the technology of mind control is solid.

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