In the aftermath of the continuing publicity about latent encounters ( term meaning unremembered encounters with UFO related entities that I find more appropriate than "abductions"), my colleague Martha Munroe and I, as well as other researchers, are contending with increasing numbers of individuals who are coming forward with feelings that they too might be latent encounter experiencers.
While the publicity is proving a boon to case numbers, it is also a potential bane to the quality of information that may come out in any investigation. In the suggestible state that experiencers are asked to enter and in their potential willingness to please, anything picked up among friends, or in the UFO conferences that are nearly as common as bingo games, or in the persistent media din, is fair game for regurgitation. Anyone who has investigated a number of these cases is aware of this contamination potential and how much more difficult it makes investigation. Also in the wake of the continuing Carnival Cruise of UFO authors there is an unfortunate trail of disturbed individuals who must be screened out and referred to mental health professionals.
In the face of these difficulties, we here in Massachusetts have tried to shift our main focus from emphasis on the details of the images reported (although these are pursued vigorously) to the abstracting of overalin patterns which have not been publicized and are unique to our own) investigations.
Now, at this point, let me say that the following material may seem quite extreme to those who are nuts-and bolts oriented. However, I strongly believe it represents a faithful and conservative representation of our work. It reflects what is being reported to us by experiencers and it is being related by completely independent witnesses.
In a previous paper we have discussed the pattern represented by our latent encounter model (Orbiter, Feb. '88 and MUFON Journal, June, 1988) and, in a following note, the model's predictive value (Orbiter, Jun/Jul '88, published by Jim Melescoic.
Another outstanding pattern is apparent in all the people we have worked with; viz. there is no experiencer (a person who has reported images of an encounter with UFO associated entities) who has reported one and only one latent encounter. In every instance multiple experience images, trailing back to early childhood, have emerged during regression or in subsequent flashbacks.
Reasoning inductively, we have adopted the viewpoint that if an individual has reported one latent encounter, that individual will eventually report multiple encounter images extending throughout life. This has proven valid in all cases. We have found that there is no experiencer who will report, in the ultimate course of an investigation, the adult genesis of his or her latent encounters, even though, when beginning the investigation the experiencer believes he or she has had only a single adult encounter.
It has become clear that the experiencer's images are not the result of a random process, for if that were the case we would expect to see at least some people who, after investigation, have made only an isolated claim at a random point in their lives rather than a series originating in early childhood and progressing well into adulthood.
Succinctly stated, we can say that if people have not had a latent encounter by childhood they will never have one. If they have had one, they will have or have had many.
What could be the reason for such a pattern?
From the perspective of what would motivate an individual to report such images the above seems consistent with the view that we might be dealing with fantasy-prone people stimulated by pervasive media focus on this material. We could say that these people need to project themselves into latent encounter scenarios-as a way of attracting attention to compensate for unmet needs, or as wish fulfillments, or perhaps as screens for other situations too difficult to face directly.
Contradicting this point of view are the following: that the experiencer in general wants no publicity but is trying to solve a personal life puzzle, and in reliving the latent encounter images, is invariably disturbed, embarrassed, or both; that there is no obvious satisfaction from the relation, only an apparent lessening of anxiety and a feeling that certain gaps in one's life have been filled; that in spite of a feeling of relief there still remains a quality of wanting to keep the relation at a distance because it is so difficult to incorporate.
Interestingly, in support of the screen argument, we have found that our population of experiencers has a disproportionate number of people who believe themselves the victims of either verbal or physical child abuse (30 to 40 percent compared to a national figure of 25 percent quoted to us by a psychologist). However, our sample is small and irregular and may not be meaningful. Yet those who report no abuse still report the same traumatic encounter imagery as those who feel they have suffered abuse. The screen argument is lessened too by the fact that, once the encounter imagery is relived the emotions associated with it seem reduced. This shouldn't be the case if the latent encounter imagery were really a disguise for something else.
It is probably wise to not completely dismiss the possible link between child abuse and the fact of being an experiencer, although I don't believe this is the ultimate source of the imagery.
The above, combined with our position of not being prepared to publicize the experiencer in any way, eliminates any material motive for the experiencer to continue the investigation, i.e., there is no payoff for the claimant in being repeatedly subjected to an embarrassing, anxiety provoking recitation for a small group of investigators who can neither verify the reality of the images nor wish to promote them for gain or publicity.
For the great majority of experiencers there must be a deeper, more urgent motive for pursuing the inconvenience and upset of an encounter investigation; a motive that can have little, if anything, to do with money or media attention.
It seems to me that there are two possibilities: either experiencers must somehow have a genetic predisposition to report these kinds of images (the reports of family involvement through at least three generations which we also have here in Massachusetts is a strong support for this point of view) or that their images are the result of intervention of some kind. If there exists a genetic predisposition to express this kind of imagery then we would expect it to have appeared in a similar manner before the time of wide UFO publicity. Is there a historical parallel?
If, as a working hypothesis, we consider that the imagery is the remnant of true intervention we are left ,with the conclusion that the individual reporting the imagery must indeed be the product of a predetermined selection process with the selection having occurred in early childhood.
Staying with our working hypothesis, an indication of the how and why of selection has emerged in our work during the last couple of years and stems from an overlooked detail of the encounter imagery.
The key lies in a salient image whose nature is implied in the UFO literature. It is the experiencer's image of an entity involved in the encounter who stands out from all the other encounter entities. This entity is described as the "leader" and, many times, has been given a name by the experiencer. What has been recognized as important is that this lead entity is familiar to the experiencer, and, as we find, this same entity appears in nearly every encounter, imaged by the experiencer. Furthermore, this familiar entity has a special connection to the experiencer!
This, the familiar entity, is the salient image and realization. It is so because it leads to further, emotion provoking insight into why the same individuals have repeated encounter images and others have none.
The process of ultimate realization starts with the experiencer, having been regressed, in the midst of the encounter imagery for a particular experience. The experiencer has recognized that there is an entity present who is familiar. Since familiarity implies previous imagery, the experiencer is asked to go back to the time implied by the sense of familiarity. The process is repeated to the earliest age at which the experiencer has a sense of association or presence.
In the last two and one half years nine experiencers have articulated a sense of entity familiarity. Two of these experiencers have reported feelings of familiarity with a trio of entities rather than with individual entities. Six of the nine individuals have reported being infants in their cribs or bassinets with their special entity looking down at them. Six of the nine have reported feelings of pre-birth association with the special entity(ies).
Five of the nine experiencers reported feelings of not belonging here and of wanting to return to their place(s) of origin. Pre-birth association is, perhaps, the most interesting connection of all.
As the experiencer recounts the images of the crib encounter, concentrating on the accompanying image of the entity, the feeling of familiarity persists and with it a realization in the experiencer that he or she is not only aware of another place and another sense of being, a non-human sense of being (thus the dual reference).
Typically, this feeling of duality brings with it an overwhelming emotional surge and a sense of belonging somewhere else, of belonging to a different world. Close upon this is a deep longing for return attended by expressions of having been abandoned here (on Earth).
Remember that in this crib encounter the feeling of familiarity continues persistent and strong. This is taken as a signal to the investigators to continue asking the experiencer when previously have they seen the image of the special entity, and to go back yet again to that time of association.
Three experiencers have thus, independently, gone back to images of themselves as alien entities. In one tear-filled session, the experiencer at first experienced his consciousness, disembodied and contained, in the presence of his special entity (this is the second instance of this type of image that has been reported to us). The imagery continued with communication taking place between the consciousness and the special entity. This was followed by another flashback, a precursor to the contained consciousness image, in which the experiencer saw himself as "one of them" deciding whether his consciousness or that of the special entity was to occupy a human form.
The experiencer's relationship with the special entity was now very clear to him - the two were partners in a process in which the experiencer's future human body was to be involved and which the special entity was to monitor.
In moving forward in the time imagery of experiencers we have found that the feeling of dual reference seems to disappear from theirimages at different ages.
With most it does not seem to bepresent after about the age of four (as expressed in their imagery), but one experiencer reported this feeling of dual reference still present in an encounter at age nine.
During the regression to that age, she had feelings that, at last, she was going to return to where she belonged. She was disappointed that not only was this not to be the case but that she was to undergo a procedure that would considerably lessen her sense of dual awareness (the details are reserved as a check on other cases). She reported undergoing a test the following day to determine the results of the procedure. Supposedly, it worked.
The phenomenon of familiarity-entity leading-to-a-sense-of-dual-reference very significant in that it has been found in nine experiencers independently. In fact, it has been found whenever it has been looked for and in several cases it has appeared spontaneously. It is a phenomenon that is scarce in the literature, if it exists there at all, just about eliminating the possibility of contamination as a source.
One can postulate several sources for such a deeply felt unconscious pattern - a pattern common enough to be quite significant yet so surprising ta both the experiencer and investigators:
o A reflection of the psychological makeup of the individual.
o A reflection of something induced in the experiencer by the investigative process.
o A reflection of something resulting from an imposition on the experiencer.
The first of these seems unlikely on the basis of the many different different personalities evident in the group, but, course, this is only a subjective observation. Testing in the manner of the study sponsored by the Fund for' UFO Research might prove instructive (see Final Report on the Psychological Testing of UFO "Abductees," 1985, Fund for UFO Research, Box 277, Mt. Ranier, MD 20712).
The second of these seems more viable as a possibility, although the in" vestigators believe great care has been taken not to lead the experiences.
The third possibility seems overwhelming. If it is indeed the source, it implies the taking up of residence in the human form at birth (or before) of a fully developed intelligence which for a while is aware of bcth its human and non-human nature and of the pre-arranged monitoring to be conducted throughout life.
Finally, if, in our investigations, there are claims of alien intelligence taking up residence in the human body, are there corresponding images in which the alien intelligence leaves the human body?
We have no evidence for this from our investigations, but last year, in conversation, I was told by an individual that at his mother's death in 1937, he and his two sisters were terrified to see a figure descending the stairs. The figure had a face that the man saw again years later -- on the dust jacket of Communion!