What's Going On?
What to make of the sincerity of alien abductees? SPOILER ALERT: I have no idea.
A few weeks ago, UFO whistleblower David Grusch went public with startling claims about the USA being in possession of recovered non-human craft. While the first article regarding the allegations made no mention of any biological entities associated with these craft, Grusch went further in an interview with journalist Ross Coulthart on NewsNation, stating that recovery teams occasionally encountered non-human “pilots.” This part of the story hasn’t received nearly as much attention. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s too much too soon. Regardless, it raises the topic of an important corollary to the entire UFO phenomena, that of the “experiencer.”
“Alien abductions” first became popularized since 1961 when Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been taken aboard a craft while driving home from Niagara Falls to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Although theirs was not the first alien abduction report, it was the first to receive mainstream attention. In the decades since, alien abductions have become a cultural meme, usually accompanied by the snickering phrase “anal probe.” Writer Whitley Strieber, who wrote the bestselling alien abduction memoir Communion refers to being “raped” during his own 1985 encounter. Other contactees report being impregnated or being shown their own hybrid offspring. Some report being given dire environmental messages. Some are shown versions of the future. Some claim to have been “implanted” with unearthly technology, usually through the nose. Many believe these experiences have been happening throughout their lives; often the abductions run in families. Their stories are so unbelievable and fantastical that it’s no wonder most people dismiss them out of hand.
In 1992, the writer C.D.B Bryan attended a conference for experiencers held at MIT (although I should note that this was not a school-sanctioned conference; that was merely the location). His intention was to write a humor piece mocking the entire affair for The New Yorker magazine. Instead, the five-day conference convinced him in the sincerity of the attendees, which culminated with (in my opinion) the best, more dispassionate book on the subject, Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abductions, UFOs: Witnesses and Scientists Speak Out. Bryan didn’t come to a firm conclusion to the veracity of the claims, but did seem to become convinced that, while the details of their stories could not be confirmed, something was happening to these people. The question: what?
The numbers aren’t small. A significant percentage of the population believe that they had these experiences – I’ve seen reports that it may be as many as 3% (a number which seems extremely high to me, but even a tenth of that would be a lot of people). Aftereffects are profound. Many have symptoms consistent with PTSD. Some have “lost time,” unaccounted-for hours when they cannot explain their whereabouts. Some have unexplained scars. Some report paranormal effects, including some forms of telepathy and the ability to affect electronics at a distance. Uri Geller, the controversial psychic personality best known for “spoon bending”, reportedly received his gifts from some kind of alien visitation during his childhood in Israel.
Some scientists explain the phenomena as the result of “sleep paralysis,” a common sleep disorder which occurs when somebody cannot move their muscles while either falling asleep or waking from sleep. Symptoms may include the sensation that somebody is pushing you or holding you down. Like alien abductions, sleep paralysis may also run in families.
Perhaps it’s true that some “alien abductions” are no more than sleep paralysis. But what about the people who experience these events while awake? What about those scars? What about the strange after-effects? It’s more-than-worth noting that I have yet to hear of any experiencer’s predictions about the future coming to fruition. Nor have I ever heard of any demonstrably “alien” technology recovered from alleged implants.
Believers will believe and doubters will doubt. Personally, I have no firm opinion on the subject. Whether this phenomenon is purely psychological, physical, or some combination is a mystery to me. People will no doubt to continue to mock experiencers, which I guess is to be expected, but it’s absurd to doubt their sincerity. Something is happening to these people. What is it? Do these experiences relate to the very-real (whatever the explanation turns out to be) UFO phenomenon? Is there some other intelligence beyond us? Is there some other intelligence within us?
What’s going on?
Like you, I have long been fascinated by UFOs and the phenomenon of alien abduction. My interest has semi-recently morphed from distant and casual to something a lot more intense, as my identical twin sons are experiencers. They just turned five, and haven't had any experiences in a few months, which is a relief, as it was terrifying for them and for me. It started in the winter of 21/22, and stopped in September of '22, with just a couple after that. When it started, they weren't scared--they just suddenly started talking about the rocket ship with all the lights they could see out their window, and how it made no noise. I promise you - they had never seen anything about UFOs on TV. I am very anti-screen, and especially at that point in time, they'd watched precious little TV. (I know people love to debunk that idea, with "well, you can't control everything they're exposed to, blah, blah, blah." To which I say, I'd worked from home while being a stay at home single mother without any child care for years, do not tell me what I know and don't know.) From there it went to something far more frightening, that escalated to one of the twins just becoming absolutely hysterical one night, and completely unable to verbalize what had happened, other than to say it was "dangerous." I know this might sound completely batshit, but not long after that, I wound up calling a woman who does house clearings (like of ghosts), and she came and blessed the house. That was September of 2022, and things have been much calmer ever since. FWIW, their biological father (who left when they were six months old and they've never seen since) was also an experiencer. In a way, I am too--except in my situation I can say with confidence my experiences were prompted by sleep paralysis. Usually my sleep paralysis went a different direction, with my brain conjuring up a hallucination of being interrogated by government agents, but a couple of times it went with aliens. I was always pretty aware of what was happening, however. I will also tell you that at least in the case of my boys, being an experiencer goes deeper than just aliens. When they were just learning to speak, I was tucking them into bed and all of a sudden both of them were staring at something above my head. They both pointed, at what looked like nothing. I asked what they were looking at and they said, "the man." They stared, fixated, for several minutes, until they both visibly relaxed in the same moment. This was one of several such ghost stories. They also seem oddly psychic. Last week, I was at a public health forum on housing insecurity, where the issue of people living in motels was discussed multiple times. I got home, and within five minutes my son said, "Mommy, did you know sometimes people live in hotels?" I asked him how he knew that and he said, "I've seen it." (I do not think he has seen it.) Anyway - long story short - I don't know what it is they have experienced, exactly, but I know that I have never in my life seen a human being as terrified as my son was that night, and I will never forget it.
did you ever see mysterious skin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqcWZQLmJgs