Open-Letter-to-Abductees-Part-1

An Open Letter to Abductees

Part 1

By: David Andrew

Decades ago, those who endeavored to research UFO’s concentrated their efforts strictly on the UFO phenomenon. As time passed, reports and testimony started to surface from persons claiming to have had encounters with the occupants of some of these UFO’s. At that time most if not all UFO researchers elected to distance themselves from these contact and abduction stories. Most researchers felt that many of these abduction stories were just too bizarre and strange and it was hard enough to convince people of the validity of the UFO phenomenon without adding the abduction aspect. As the UFO topic gained wider acceptance, more people elected to come forward and share their stories of up close encounters with the occupants of UFO’s. Eventually the numbers of such encounter reports had grown to the point that researchers were faced with having to acknowledge the fact that the UFO and abduction phenomena were related. After enough people had chosen to speak out about what was happening to them, small similarities in some of these experiences became apparent. It was at this point that a handful of researchers began to focus their efforts on the abduction phenomenon exclusively. From these initial efforts to study abductions more closely and on up to the present, abduction research has yielded some useful data. Unfortunately, continued research has in many ways created even more questions than it has found answers. After all this time, the answer to the question of “Why” still remains just as elusive as it did in the early days of abduction research.

Today many abductees are less fearful of speaking publicly about their experiences and many have chosen to do so. Personally I have gained a little more insight into the abduction phenomenon from speaking to others about their experiences and sharing my own experiences with them. For the most part I have no regrets about talking to others about my own encounters. Throughout all the research I have done a lingering question has always been in the back of my mind. That question is why do we choose to speak out? Why do some of us feel the need to talk about our experiences and, does it really accomplish anything? By talking to each other we can find the differences in our experiences as well as find some of the commonalities that might present themselves and I do believe this is useful. It surely gives comfort to the experiencer to know they are not totally alone in all this and to know that others are having encounters as well. Even with those benefits, a cold hard reality must be faced by all experiencers whether they want to admit it or not. That reality is that when it comes right down to it, we can speak out all we want and speak with each other all we want but whenever an abduction experience occurs to any of us no one else can stop it, change it, or explain why it is happening to us. Through all this the answers to the really big questions about what is happening to us still won’t be found. Abduction research can only go so far by its current methodology and I think it has reached its limits in what it can discover or uncover.

~Science, Skepticism and Guesswork~

Sometimes in scientific analysis stumbling blocks and unforeseen difficulties can occur that make finding the “What it is” answers difficult. Many times in such instances, researchers might choose to change their research tactics and use a process of elimination method. They eliminate all the things that what they are researching “is not” to hopefully get closer to “what it is.” Are you familiar with the quote by Arthur Conan Doyle that says, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Skeptics of the abduction phenomenon have long used a list of “possibilities” that they claim can explain away all abductions in conventional terms. Things such as sleep paralysis, hallucinations, chemical imbalances in the brain, physical or sexual abuse, and even mental illness have been presented by skeptics as possible explanations for stories of abductions.

In the twenty years or so that I have been researching the abduction phenomenon, there is an aspect of this topic that has presented itself repeatedly. This aspect is the fact that in some cases, the skeptics list of explanations for why people think they have been abducted does apply. I have met many people who think they have been abducted or claim to be abductees when they are not. I do feel that there are some people who have had an episode or episodes of sleep paralysis and mistaken this to be an indication they were abducted. Sadly I have also met several people who claim to be abductees and, after speaking with them at length it becomes very apparent that they have serious issues and alien abduction isn’t one of them. Additionally there are also some medically proven physiological problems that can cause a person to hallucinate. To be as objective a researcher as I can I must be willing to consider these factors as well as the possibility that someone might be a genuine abductee.

I heard of a well known author who experimented with several types of hallucinogenic plants used by native shamans in South America. He claims that his research shows a similarity in the substances in these plants and a chemical found in trace amounts in the human body called Dimethyltryptamine (DMT). While under the influence of this hallucinogen he claims to have had “visions” of beings that are very similar to descriptions of some extraterrestrials given by abductees. He feels that some people have occurrences where the DMT levels in their bodies rise or spike unnaturally causing them to hallucinate and he thinks this is the explanation for people thinking they were abducted. I know from my research and the research of others that all of these “possible causes” previously mentioned could be considered as explanations for some people thinking they are abductees but, they are not explanations for all the people who say they have been abducted.

It has been known by abduction researchers for quite some time now that in many cases the abduction phenomenon is “generational”. This term means that persons from several generations of a family are abductees. Stories you hear from abductees often mention medical type procedures being conducted on them by the extraterrestrials. Sometimes these procedures include physical samples; hair, skin, ova or sperm, being taken from the abductee. It is clear to me and other researchers that there is a definite physiological research aspect to what the extraterrestrials are doing with abductees and also a possible psychological/mental aspect to it. They are looking for and, testing for something but what, and why?

*****

Back