The Priests of High Strangeness
Rainey, Carol: Paratopia, 15 january 2010
Co-creation of the "alien abduction phenomenon"
Sometimes an event comes hurdling along and scatters wellintentioned plans left and right. I had intended to wait several more years before writing about my hard-won insights into the alien abduction phenomenon. During my ten-year marriage to UFO researcher Budd Hopkins, I’d actively participated in some of Budd’s UFO cases; edited his third book, Witnessed; co-authored the next book, Sight Unseen, with him; shot extensive documentary footage of Budd’s research; and produced short films that he used on the conference circuit. But we haven’t been married for the past several years, we’ve each gotten on with our own lives, and, since 2004, I’ve refused to participate in abduction research. There seemed to be a lot to lose and nothing to gain by speaking up, during my former husband’s lifetime, about my perceptions of some researchers’ ethical violations, misuse of human subjects, and their steady manipulation of the abduction narrative into a rigid doctrine. No need to rush to print.
But then along came Emma Woods’ story, reaching me last spring while I was living and working in the 14th century Moroccan walled-city of Fez. It was an explosive case of subject abuse that shook up many people and would later become the November 2010 cover story for UFO Magazine. During a long rainy day, waiting for the donkey to deliver my cooking gas, I took the time to carefully review the material on both sides—on the subject (Emma Woods’) website and also on the website of researcher David Jacobs. The audio taped excerpts of the sessions provided a trail through the labyrinthine ways in which researchers are able to “lead” the subject in a certain direction by pre-hypnosis conversation about other cases they’re interested in; how the narrative is manipulated to fit the high strangeness requirements of the researcher’s upcoming book; the tapes also show egregious boundary crossing and ethical improprieties.
Before a subject’s hypnotic regression with Budd Hopkins, the author secures the microphone. [1]
It electrified me out of my silence and into action. Because Emma’s case brought painfully to mind several other cases that had passed through my own home in the not too distant past—and for any adverse effect on these individuals’ lives that I might have contributed to as the documentary filmmaker or writer on the scene, I am genuinely sorry. At this point, perhaps I can best make amends by responding to the question asked in a letter to the editor of UFO Magazine by veteran UFO researcher Ray Fowler: “I wonder how many other Emmas there are out there?”
Let me begin to name them, because they are most definitely there.
And in their naming, it will become clear— despite Hopkins’ and Jacobs’ adamant and repeated statements to the contrary, like politicians working off of the same faxed talking point of the day—that the marshy ground of alien abductions is afloat in hoaxes and partial hoaxes. It will also become clear that what Hopkins and Jacobs claim as “the powerful evidence” for alien abductions and hybrids among us is based primarily on the powerful, hypnotic repetition of their own proclamations—and the public’s gullibility in believing whatever unfounded theories these star paranormal investigators punt down the field. Further, it will become clear that these abduction investigators know that the people featured in their published books or conference lectures are not the norm for abduction experiences. The sensational cases published in Hopkins’ Intruders and Witnessed, in Jacobs’ Secret Life and The Threat are positioned as the anecdotal examples that describe the entire phenomenon.
The problem for the rest of us who are trying to understand this thing is that these particular cases are almost always “high strangeness,” weirder than weird, spectacular exceptions to the rule. They are not representative of what Hopkins and Jacobs “discover” in their day-to-day, run-of-the-mill abduction reports.
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Originally Posted by majicbar
