Aliens

First published in Column 8 on the 17^th of July, 1991

One of the most difficult statements not of a third kind that I’ve closely encountered in the last week related to the 22^nd annual gathering of the Mutual UFO Network.

Stanton Friedman, a physicist, but plainly not a plain-speaking on, said, ‘Most people believe in UFOs, but most people believe that most people don’t believe in UFOs.’

Run that by me again, Stanton?

Visitors from out space have been the ‘in thing’ for several decades, helped along by Hollywood, television, a burgeoning sci-fi market, and people who either really have seen things from outer space or dreamed them up. People such as Debbie Toomey, who tells the story of being abducted by aliens back in 1983.

I’m not one to scoff at beliefs in UFOs. Modern physicists’ theories about the universe are far more incredible, anyway. Nor do I have any great trouble with there being a possibility of inhabited planets somewhere else in the immense reaches of space.

More to the point, I find it odd to think that aliens would be interested in visiting us. Would they really travel not just the length of our otherwise uninhabited solar system to find us, but billions of miles from their own home?

Encouraged by films such as Star Wars we have these marvellous ideas about the speed of space travel, what with time warps and skipping through light years. When it’s only a story, we don’t have to explain how mankind – or any other kind – is supposed to have developed skills sufficient to travel through the limitless reaches of space. (Anyway, most space stories are about something much less subtle altogether – cops and robbers.)

If aliens did turn up here, what would our reaction be? People would either tend to keep quiet about it, because the aliens were so out of the ordinary, or feel threatened by them. These two have been the staple of stories as widely different as ET and It Came From Outer Space. It’s what you’d expect.

To be honest I don’t think aliens would normally make their presence widely known – they’d only have to take one look at our planet to realise that we don’t treat anyone who smacks of ‘difference’ too well.

The most alien being ever known to have visited this world arrived in very unpublicised circumstances. During his stay he managed to keep out of the limelight as much as possible, even though his actions made that difficult. He often told people not to talk about what he’d done, and when they did anyway, he tended to retreat into the mountains.

Many of the top dogs felt exceedingly threatened by him: in fact, the ruler of the day tried to wipe him out within a year or two of his arrival and massacred a number of innocent babies in the attempt. Typical reactions towards an alien.

When he did come out in the open and explain his ‘mission,’ as you might call it, he had exactly the same response from people that alleged aliens still have.

Unfortunately, for the most part people didn’t want to hear his words, or believe what he had to say, and, as in so many alien stories, they attacked him and eventually killed him. This alien did something truly spectacular – he came back to life, and has had a major impact on the world and its inhabitants ever since.

Of course you have to believe the story.

What I find strange in all these current discussions of aliens is how so many people who find the story of Christ incredible can cheerfully swallow all manner of nonsense about anything else.

 

Poster from the 1953 movie It Came From Outer Space

A couple of quotes relating to Debbie Toomey – also known as Kathy (or Kathie) Davis. The sources are in the links at the beginning of each paragraph.

The argument Ufologists make about the physical reality of abduction experiences has been well expressed by Bruce Maccabee in a recent letter in the Bulletin of Anomalous Experience, a newsletter I publish for mental health professionals and others interested in abductions. Though Maccabee acknowledged that "to date most abduction experiences are not accompanied by evidence that could establish a physical reality, e.g., physical effects on the environment or even independent witnesses," he pointed out that some are:
Of particular interest are the abduction cases in which there is a continuum between the apparently objective experience of seeing a UFO (bright light or structured flying object) and the abduction experience itself. The case of Kathy Davis (Debbie Toomey) in Budd Hop kins' book Intruders is an excellent example. Physical phenomena recorded in the ground in her back yard (a sizeable area in which the grass was killed, the soil seemingly sterilized because grass didn't grow back for a long time) during the abduction experience, plus the recollections of other members of her family at the time provide a considerable amount of evidence that something "real and physical" (whatever that means!) occurred during the abduction. (Maccabee, 1992, p. 1)

and

In Intruders (1987), Hopkins provides the reason behind the tracking of humans. The book centres on the experiences of Kathie Davis, who claimed upwards of a dozen abduction experiences since childhood. During Davis’s experiences, the “Grays” performed repeated gynaecological examinations. Under hypnosis, Davis eventually recovered memories of the aliens impregnating her and subsequently removing the foetus. In a later encounter, the beings showed her the result of this experiment: a half-human, half-Gray daughter. She described the being as having big, blue eyes; pale skin; a tiny mouth; and a head that was larger than normal (p. 223). Based on Davis’s memories, Hopkins concluded that alien abductions are part of a long-term extraterrestrial breeding experiment.

Hopkins, B. (1987). Intruders: The incredible visitations at Copely Woods. New York: Ballantine. Hough, P. (1989).