Perhaps the first important fact is that some abductees remember a lot of their experiences, others remember small disjointed pieces, and still others remember almost nothing or have no thought it could be connected to UFOs. Many people ask the question and are just shooting in the dark. Are they ready to confront the answer? Linked to this problem is that many symptoms of abduction are so obvious in hindsight, it seems hardly credible the abductee would not realise their significance. But we must be aware that the human ability to deny is so vast, we routinely rationalise the most strange into the ordinary. We are masters in ignoring what disturbs us. In this way we sustain our world view. In one small example Budd Hopkins talks about a woman who woke up in the middle of the night in mid-air falling onto a couch on the other side of her bedroom. She decided that somehow in the middle of the night she had sleepwalked, stood on top of her bed and ran to the edge, jumping high in the air to land on the couch!!!! In another a local doctor drove up to his children's school to drive his family home. He arrived early and waited in his car. After an hour he was furious they hadn't come, then he saw them at last. To his astonishment they upbraided him for not being on time. "I was here all the time," he swore. Other witnesses, who were with his family, insisted the space where he was now parked was empty. In the end he convinced himself he was the subject of a freakish Einstein time warp, finding that more acceptable to his worldview than abductions. Finally, we have to consider the questioner's general mental state. This is why psychological evaluations are crucial to any investigation. I have met schizophrenics who claim they have been abducted. Maybe they have, and it may even be possible abductions helped trigger their mental illness. Frankly there is no way to be sure. It's a dead end. Here we may help the abductee, but we cannot answer the question, nor rely on any answers we can deduce. Once we appreciate these points we can explore the symptoms we should look for. These following clues have been targeted by Hopkins and Jacobs, and documented by many researchers. A- Experiencing a period of time of an hour or more, in which you were apparently lost, but you could not remember why, or where you had been. The witness may or may not associate the missing time with UFOs or other strange lights in the sky. He simply arrives somewhere very late and yet --until he sees a clock or is accosted by the irate person waiting for him-- he is convinced only the usual amount of time has passed. The lost time confuses him as it confused the local doctor waiting at the school for his family. Or the lost time may be related to distance. One abductee I knew suddenly lost all awareness as he drove south from Benalla and "woke up three hours later over a hundred miles away on a different road". He said it was like watching a curtain rise from his lap to the inside roof of the car. He saw his hands on the steering wheel first, then the horn on the steering wheel, then the dashboard, then the windscreen, then the outside view and then he found himself driving, completely puzzled where he was. Or the person can be missing in impossible circumstances, then reappear. During the late 1940s railroad staff on the long distance freight trains between Sydney and Broken Hill would suddenly vanish after the crew would see bright lights parallelling them. The remaining crew would search the entire train for the missing to no avail. Then the "lost" would reappear insisting they had never been away. Soon the staff learned not to bother asking each other. B- Waking up paralysed with a sense of a strange person or presence or something else in the room. Interpretations by the waking witness can vary between aliens, ghosts, angels, bad dreams and waking nightmares. Sometimes the presence seems to do nothing, sometimes it touches or prods the witness. It may talk, make gestures, and/or communicate through the mind directly. A feeling of dread or terror can engulf the witness, or the paralysis can give them a warm, calm feeling. Even before an abduction is recognised, the person can think some odd remark such as, "Oh no, not again"; or "I don't want to go" without any understanding of what the words mean. There is no accompanying memory to explain it. Often these words can stay and haunt the person and begin the process of remembering the wider experience. C- Finding puzzling scars or marks on your body and neither you nor anyone else can remember how you received them or where you got them. The clues here are more concrete and offer harder evidence. Scars can be like the well-known wrinkled scoop marks akin to the shallow pit left by a digging spoon. Or one of many physical effects on the body. These range from simple straight scars to massive cuts. People will be seen naked as they go to bed, then bear very large fresh scars down their back or front the next morning. Incredibly, the wounds are fresh, but not bleeding and mostly painless. The victim is as startled as the person spotting the wound. There are bumps, bruises and puncture marks over the whole body. Bizarre and very rare gynaecological conditions are reported. Sinus cavities are frequently affected. On the other hand there are miraculous cures. In one case a girl went to bed critically ill with diphtheria and woke the next morning cured, completely free of the disease. To add to her doctor's astonishment she claimed her abductors had put her in a machine and cured her. Perhaps the most tantalising proof concerns implants. Little round BB like pellets are found, particularly in the nose and sinus areas. Several experiencers have blown their noses or sneezed and out flew these pellets. We have X-rays of small objects with hook-like appendages which disappeared the next day without surgery. Researchers have found a small but growing number of these objects. Detailed laboratory analysis is trying to unlock these puzzles right now. D- Seeing unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was causing them, or where they came from. On occasion this the first baffling sign that witnesses report. They associate it with ghosts or poltergeists or psychic projections and the link to UFOs seems tenuous. It may be linked to seeing or feeling a presence in the witnesses' room and/or paralysis. E- Feeling that you were actually flying through the air although you didn't know why or how. Thought by many to relate only to astral travel, this can also be a symptom of abductions. The witness feels that he has actually flown, not imagined it. He knows it is real, despite its impossibility. Sometimes he can remember the house below his flight, and see the neighbourhood. Perhaps he remembers lights or UFOs. Or he passes through windows or walls and actually seeing the grain or substance of the material he's passing through. Or he has a feeling of being accompanied by unknown presences who are flying with him. These are some of the main points or clues which can help the witness and investigator track down the answer to the abduction question. However I must stress that any one clue is just that. Yes, the greater the number of clues and the more they overlap and reinforce each other, the greater the chance the witness may have been abducted. Exhibit all five and the chances are strong. But remember coincidences occur. And people like attention and delude themselves. And mental illness can distort reality. Any good investigation is more than a mere collection of these symptoms. Furthermore, it is very important to understand there is more to the abduction question and an investigation than these five points. When an ordinary person comes for help --and the vast majority of people who seek help ARE quite ordinary: they are business, sales, and trades people, housewives, police, and teachers, students, artists, public servants and factory workers-- they are frightened by their suspicions. They really want to talk to someone who will openly listen to them and to hope against hope that they may not be "mad". "All my life I wondered... What does this mean?.... Since I was five I felt that I ... Anyone I mentioned this to thinks I'm nuts." So in a sense one of the first things to look for is a sense of isolation. These people feel apart. Other emotions may vary. Each individual is different and reacts differently. As they relive their experiences they can cry, curl into a ball, hyperventilate, begin swearing, laugh, gush, become wondrous, seem understanding or lost, act tender or angry, or force themselves out of the hypnotic state. Sometimes the same experience can elicit opposite emotions at different interviews. But that they believe their experiences you cannot doubt. They are real to them --absolutely, even when they fear them. Thus in a subtle, difficult to explain way, the intensity of emotion itself is a guide. This is why psychological evaluations are so crucial: you have to understand where that emotional base is located and how reliable it is in describing their experiences. Most abductees are traumatised, however good or bad they eventually come to view their abductions. The shock to their world picture is cataclysmic. Whatever they may have remembered or suspected about their experiences, whatever clues they may have followed to come for help, it is impossible to really believe what has happened, and may still be happening, to them. They are affected and show it. It changes most people's lives forever. There is no going back to a simpler, more limited world picture. The Universe has shifted and they see it differently. And FEEL it differently. Abductions are more than mere intellectual exercises to its sufferers. Consequently people react in unanticipated ways. There are those who begin to suspect or relive the events, and, then in a massive stroke of denial, reject them utterly. The shock is too great. These too display this intensity if only in the negative. It is ironic that two of the strongest cases of this kind of denial were fellow UFO researchers I worked with. They began as UFO investigators long before abductions were recognised. Their histories were full of abduction symptoms (scars, missing time etc.), though, of course, they, nor any of their colleagues, could understand it. Abductions were to all intents and purposes unknown. Yet clearly by their UFO interest they had been motivated by their hidden experiences. Then when abductions in general began to be better understood, their unrecognised symptoms became so obvious --even to themselves-- they rejected the idea utterly, even while continuing to work with abductees haunted by the same symptoms. In fact an interesting project might be to examine the relationship between UFO researchers and abduction. How many have been abducted? How many have not? And how many continue their research avoiding the whole question on a personal level. It is interesting to note that a lesser abduction symptom is an obsessive interest in space, the sky and astronomy. [Of course let's underline the reverse as well. There are sizable groups who come to us in alarm and somehow have linked that feeling to UFOs ,... and then find nothing about an abduction. Whatever the source of their fears it lies elsewhere. There are even clients who are savagely disappointed, because they were NOT abducted. The investigator should always remain aware of the complexity and range of human personality and experience. It is essential to remember that displaying one or more of any of these clues does not mean a person has been abducted. If an investigator always finds an abduction in every client, something is wrong, unless the screening process has already been extensive. Many cases are inconclusive and stay so.] It is also important to stress an investigation is twofold: for you as a Ufology researcher and for the person begging for help and understanding. Remember only a few abductees are fully aware of their experiences. The rest are on the road to discovery and many may not even be aware they are even going down the road. As the investigation of a genuine abduction develops you watch the person begin to explore, then come to grips with the fact that he-or-she has actually been abducted. This can vary depending on the clients awareness of his own symptoms, and the sensitivity of your investigation. Yes, to those who remember their experiences the answer is clear and available, though rarely does an abductee recall every moment. Often hypnosis can help clarify the fullness and order of the events. These are the easiest cases. They remember the UFO, the actual kidnapping, the inside of the ships and the aliens. Except for hoaxes or the mentally ill (and this is why good researchers should do psychological evaluations), I am not aware of any person reporting this memory who has not been abducted. On the other side of the coin is the experiencer who remembers nothing. If he or she seems anxious or traumatised, as far as they know it has nothing to do with UFOs. Their memories pop up spontaneously. I know a hypnotherapist who had no interest or knowledge of UFOs. He only began to pursue the subject after four of his patients while in regression suddenly and without any prior indication began describing their abductions. He and his patients were dumbfounded. So much for the theory that abductions are planted by the hypnotists themselves. This group may have many of the symptoms of the next group, but they do not link it to UFOs or abductions. Only after some triggering event or memory do the links crystalise. One should be very careful with these clients as they have no background or suspicion to prepare them for what could be a sundering shift in their view of reality. One wonders how many walk the streets totally unaware. And how large, or indeed small, a percentage do we investigators see. Then there is the majority group. This group senses a problem. They have experienced something which troubles them. Perhaps for a long time have felt there was a UFO connection, perhaps only recently. Make no mistake: THEY say there is a connection. They are drawn to you because your talk of UFOs. They may recall a UFO, or just vaguely sense the link, but it is THEIR link. They have come to you whether privately or at a meeting, and they want to explore the possibilities they feel are UFO related. - they may have missing time. - they may remember a UFO sighting with more fear than would seem reasonable given the passive nature of the event. - they are bombarded with vague, uncertain images of their abduction experience and cannot rationalise them away, yet may not fully accept or understand them. - they may just have some pressing fears or curiosity, and somehow sense there is a connection. - they may have insomnia and find sleep at night full of undefined terrors, insisting the doors be heavily locked and the lights on. - they could feel fearful when they pass an old road they used to travel, but won't use any longer. - maybe they have marks or scars on their bodies that disturb them even if they sort of think the marks came from ordinary accidents. - perhaps they see a strange face on a poster or on the cover of a book which haunts them. - or have regular wracking dreams about threats from space, or UFOs, or aliens, or insects, rats, deer, owl, wolves with large frightening eyes. - perhaps they are terrified of intruders. They may suffer from severe agoraphobia and are unable to leave the house and distrustful and fearful of meeting people. So we see the clues are numerous and the impact on the witnesses varied. We, the investigators, generally only see the anxious, the disturbed, the suddenly aware experiencer. We know from reports of hypnotherapists that there are those who are completely oblivious to their experiences. While in regression they can suddenly come face to face with memories. It makes one wonder how many remain unaware; indeed, how many abductees there really are. An opinion poll was held several years ago to find out. Using hidden questions which only mentioned some of these symptoms --and did not mention UFOs at all-- it suggested great numbers. It may or may not be true. We cannot go on large assumptions. We have to take our research one client at a time, piece by piece . And let the big picture fill itself in. After all, our part of the puzzle is amazing enough as it is.
©1996 Robert Marx
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