Looking back to the start of my own active work in the late 1960s, I remember the local janitor who addressed a meeting of the New England UFO Study Group in a blue velvet jacket. It was part of the uniform identifying him as Captain so-and-so, a UFO pilot from another planet. Laughable, yes, but I also recall the prominent local researcher who, although insisting on high standards in investigations of the claims of others, refused for decades to examine his own anomalous lifelong experiences in any objective way.
Time has consigned the janitor to justified oblivion. The local researcher has, however, fallen into the ranks of the large population who are UFO experiencers: those who harbor lifelong latent images of encounters with beings from UFOs and who have also had a life punctuated by anomalous and bizarre phenomena.
Since 1947 hundreds of books and countless articles have been written about the UFO phenomenon; numerous individuals have sold themselves or been exploited by the media in the name of "evidence"; films and television have unashamedly cashed-in on partially investigated or totally uninvestigated claims; tabloids have printed wonderful photos of aliens shaking hands with presidential candidates, etc. If you can't prove it, you can at least sell it. The more sensational, the better.
Sensationalism aside, the sad lack of understanding of the nature of the UFO phenomenon is evident in the many boxes that hordes of "expert" writers and commentators have tried to fit it into. So we have fairies, elves, angels, devils, extraterrestrials, time travelers, visitors from other dimensions, ourselves returning from the future, the spirits of our ancestors, sexual abuse transformations, false memories induced by therapists and investigators, the list is as long as there are ideas and cultural categories.
The theme that has been most relentlessly promoted is that of the sci-fi extraterrestrial: a being evolved on another planet, much as humans have evolved on Earth, technologically advanced and arriving to do to humans much of what humans would have hoped to do to them if humans had got there first. This is a natural theme given the descriptions of flying saucers as seemingly manufactured vehicles with extraordinary performance characteristics as the carriers of these alien beings. It's easily an idea that our culture can relate to given the direction of human technology in the twentieth century - but an idea that is totally lacking in proof to curmudgeons who are skeptical enough to demand such things.
Of course, the most spectacular aspect of the UFO situation is the encounter aspect. This has been unyieldingly presented as a phenomenon of victimization based on the emotional tellings in hypnosis of many people who have been exploited so well in the media. Unfortunately, again, proof is lacking unless one considers that having one's story told in the media is proof or "information".
UFO investigators working this Proof by Publicity angle have had two lasting effects: the subject has become firmly entrenched in American pop culture - which works wonders on public recognition and other potential payoffs - and it has sharply, perhaps irretrievably, polarized opinion on the nature of encounters to the point where credentialled individuals who announce their UFO interest within the tabloid format that can characterize "news" risk loss of status and career. By "credentialled individuals" I mean those with higher academic degrees, college/university affiliated, who have pointedly gone public with their UFO interests to the embarrassment of their institutions.
There is a third, less visible, but more important affect. The work done by "therapists" and "investigators" who have prejudged the phenomenon as victimizing, has been superficial and incomplete. Experiencers of the UFO encounter phenomenon have been left feeling angry and used. They have only been allowed to confirm what they have read or seen on television - that they are the victims of uncaring alien rudeness.
Contrarily, this writer has found that if care and time is taken in the investigative procedure a much more profound feeling is elicited in the experiencer - that of connection - which, of course, is the key to a much different appreciation of encounter images.
Ultimately, the experiencer of the phenomenon must be the judge of its nature. But since so much of the encounter imagery lies in the unconscious, experiencers have no recourse but to rely on "expert" opinion - the same experts who proclaim the manifold explanations and regularly make media appearances. And thus their feelings of unease are magnified and made more bold.
Should readers be any less wary of what is written here then anywhere else? Certainly not! Nothing here should be taken without critical judgement or a suspicious turn of mind. But if the reader has ever considered that there might be an atom of truth in any other UFO related work then that reader should also consider the possibility of what is presented here. Even within the UFO interest community alternate opinion about the nature of the phenomenon has a hard time emerging through the media din. At the risk of becoming part of the noise, it is neccessary that this particular alternate view be heard. It's not a view about the reality of alien victimization - just the opposite. It's not a view proclaiming truth - because that can never be proved. It is not a view proclaimed to cash in on the subject (I, for one, am writing pro bono). It is a view that emerged several years ago in my work with UFO experiencers that turns the table on victimization.
I had finally determined to study the encounter claim phenomenon in a comparative way - that is, by comparing one case against another to find common elements, preferably unpublished - rather than a phenomenon with objective, three dimensional manifestations; and I would thus be able to develop a trusted data base. One aspect of my investigational approach was to attempt to gauge motivation, objectivity, and ability to function normally in society..
My work with others strongly suggested that the term "abduction" was a misnomer - a vestige of incomplete investigation. If properly done, that is, if the imagery were pursued along the time line of a person's life in as much detail as possible, the experiencer could come away from the investigation with positive, rather than victimized, feelings. I do not in any way attempt to lead experiencers to these feelings. Many who leave an investigation with me in its early stages never reach the point of resolution. But if they do arrive there, they must arrive independently or not at all! This says nothing about the reality of any of the images but the emotions are certainly genuine.
As I implied above, I am simply an investigator of UFO related claims. I prefer to work with people one-to-one, and so have gone from trying to study UFO sighting claims, to studying claims of unusual phenomena related to UFOs and their effects on the reporters.
I used to consider that the study and treatment of UFO encounter claims properly belonged in the realm of credentialled mental health professionals. I must say that time and especially recent experience have caused me to drop that chimerical notion.
I have no mental health credentials and I make no pretensions to being a therapist. Experience has led me to a framework within which individuals can try to bring into conscious awareness what they feel is relevant to our joint efforts. I refuse to prepare them in advance with suggestions or explanations. I tell them instead that they must do the work to bring out whatever it is they wish. I know I have infuriated a number of people because I refuse to tell them anything in advance. Although people have been so inundated with encounter imagery in the media that they must inevitably arrive primed, at least they know that I don't expect them to perform in a prescribed way.
Even though I don't know what has happened to them, I know enough about the general structure of UFO encounters to allow people to bring to mind details within the structural stages. The process of individual recovery and assessment is up to the individual involved and can take as long or as short a time as the individual can handle. For about fifteen percent the process never begins. No encounter imagery of any consequence ever emerges.
My understanding of the UFO encounter has come from more than twenty five active years of investigating UFO sighting claims and related experiences. Over the last nineteen years I have worked in hypnosis - either as principal or supporting investigator - with 109 individuals. Of these, one was easily judged to be a hoaxer, another, influenced by a magazine article, to have misinterpreted an episode induced by medication and emotion as a UFO "abduction", and a third who thought it would be nice to be an "abductee" since she knew someone who was. Of the remainder, eighty to ninety expressed imagery in the investigative setting that are characteristic of encounters.
I decided to try a technique that I hadn't thought about since 1986, but which I now hoped might trigger latent images. Starting with the experiencer's current age, I asked them if they believed they had had any encounter experiences during the time since their last birthday. The allowable answers are "yes", "no", "not sure". I carry this inventory backward a year at a time. My intentions in conducting the inventory are several: I wanted to bring to the experiencer's waking consciousness awareness that there likely were many disturbing UFO encounter images throughout his/her life, and that they were unconsciously carrying these images with them now. The result of a life review is that there is a deep and profound connection between "them" and us.
What can I say about this realization? From an investigator's point of view - my point of view - support for this kind of conviction, in the ordinary, material, confirmable way, is completely lacking. Yet, for the experiencer it is an intensely personal, intensely authoritative conviction. It is not easily arrived at, yet when it does come it overrides all ideas of victimization. It becomes the nexus between the phenomenology of the encounter experience and the ontology of that experience. As a long time investigator I know how easy it is to leave experiencers feeling like victims and how difficult it is to allow them to come to the realization of connection without prompting or leading! However, I feel very strongly that encounter investigations that are undertaken without the intention (unstated) of the experiencer arriving at duality are done with great disservice to them, whether they reach that state or not. I wish I had objective proof to support this experiencer synthesis. I have only the observation that having reached this stage of realization the experiencer loses a great deal of fear, anxiety and self-doubt.
What I call "dual reference" is at the heart of the perspective shift that experiencers undergo during their explorations of encounter imagery. It is defined as the experiencing of oneself as both a human and an alien as one relives encounter imagery in the investigative setting.
Surprisingly, I have been told that dual reference is "only a theory". That's simply not the case! It's a pattern in the data. The inferences from what dual reference implies are hypothetical.
Let me make clear that "victimization" is also only a theory based on the pattern of encounter images that are expressed in terms of anger, fear, loss of control, and unwanted physical trauma. Unfortunately, it is a widely publicized one based on sadly incomplete investigation.
The resolution of the traumatic stages comes when the feelings of connection and origination engendered in experiencing duality provide a context shift for the experiencer.
Briefly, my work suggests that dual reference images in regression can be categorized into four classes: 1) Pre human-birth images as an alien. 2) Images of duality concurrent with one's life 3) General images of alien connection that suggest the dual nature of the experiencer. 4) Images that pose the choice of possible return to one's alien origins.
Many of the images are those suggesting "connection" with the alien beings.
A number of dual reference images consist of experiencing oneself in alien form before birth. The setting is that of preparing to come into the human form.
Less frequently expressed are images of oneself in an alien body concurrent with an encounter aboard a UFO.
The rarest set of images is that of having one's situation as a human evaluated; having to make a decision whether or not to return to alien form (leave the human body).
Now, I want to emphasize as strongly as possible that the images in the four categories above are experienced in the same way as any of the other images concomitant with the encounter incident! They are active images as opposed to the passive ones of watching a screen or being "told" something. They are thus just as valid as any other active encounter image - table images, for instance in which the experiencer tells of undergoing uncomfortable physical procedures under alien control while on a table. And these realizations of duality have an enormous emotional kick to them! Since I have kept this kind of material quiet for years there has been no prompting in the media for experiencers to unconsciously incorporate.
There are those who wish to "save" the "abduction" hypothesis (which says that humans are victims of alien opportunity; randomly grabbed at random ages by sci-fi aliens for various purposes). To this end, the experiencing of duality has been dismissed as being merely a variation of Stockholm Syndrome - a phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to his or her captors. Those who favor this view must either have no knowledge of the dual reference pattern or have completely misinterpreted it.
There are many ways in which the Stockholm Syndrome (SS) differs from dual reference (dr). Here are five instances: 1) In SS, the captives, initially fearful, gradually become acclimated through kindnesses, whereas, until dr is actually experienced (not at alien suggestion), fearfulness is hardly resolved. 2) In SS there is a gradual shift in cultural identity to that of the captors while in dr there is a sudden sense of understanding with no loss of human cultural identity. 3) In dr the non-human state is experienced as the original state, while SS captives are always distinctly aware of their pre-captivity and their post SS lives are never viewed as their origins. 4) Dual referencers experience their forms as identical to those aliens around them and sharing an alien context. Analagously, captives should experience themselves immediately within the cultural context of their captors, which is never the case. 5) Dual referencers never feel a value conflict. They become more comfortable in their lives as humans, not less so after experiencing duality.
"Abduction" saviors may object that the states listed above are the result of alien brainwashing - that these feelings have been induced to subdue unwilling victims. There are two objections to this point of view:
If it so easy to induce this mental state of submission then why isn't it immediately present among all those experiencers who come forward? Why is it so difficult to find this state of duality if it is meant to mask the victimization process? Are the aliens, at bottom, incompetent?
Secondly, we must take note of a point mentioned above - that the state of duality is experienced actively and thus it is logically impossible to draw an objective line and say that one accepts the trauma-ridden expressions as "real" and the positive expressions as "induced". All images must be accepted in one context or the other as a totallity - you can't divide them according to your prejudices or theories about the nature of encounters.
Finally, there is the issue of rationalization. The value of having kept the dual reference phenomenon largely unknown is now quite evident. Most subjects in the investigative setting experiencing duality for the first time and not having read it in the literature, find it overwhelming and very difficult to accept. There is no glib statement of 'Oh, yes, that must be it. Now I feel better.' There have been instead statements of fear for one's sanity. As one individual put it: It was safer to believe that one was crazy than to believe that experiencing oneself as a non-human being was true! The UFO books provided no supporting validation.
Critics of dr would have us believe that "fear of madness" is in some twisted way an "empowering rationalization.
Let me also point out that what is suggested by "dual reference" easily accommodates certain findings about encounters that "abduction" has difficulty with. Inference from dr is in accord with the finding that experiencers believe they have been so throughout life, rather than from the random ages expected from abduction (this is from data of a number of encounter inventories). The data suggest that if one has not had an encounter experience by the first year of life one will never have an encounter experience! I am one who never has had an encounter. I have driven home late at night over deserted roads after hypnosis sessions in which I was told that aliens were present. Why wasn't I the victim of the alien opportunity which the abduction hypothesis suggests?
If there is any rationalizing going on, that is, attempting plausible but superficial explanations, then indeed, it is the attempt to save the "abduction" theory. The dual reference pattern contradicts that hypothesis and implies something quite different for the nature of UFO encounters.
However, no objective, indisputable, evidence exists to support any of the claims made; to the contrary, purported evidence that has been tested has proved "unconvincing" and non-supportive.
Experiencers of UFO encounters have been left feeling angry, violated and abused, more I fear the victims of their investigators and therapists than the aliens reported to be involved. This is, no doubt, because incompletely investigated encounters are inevitably measured to massmedia models - the victimization model.
'Abductees' Anonymous wishes to open the door to a wider perspective on the feelings UFO experiencers have about the nature of their encounters. It is a perspective that goes beyond the stereotypical view of the world of science fiction, stories that readers will resonate to because these personal experiences could just as well be their own story. Be attentive to what the experiencers on this page are telling us.