Secret life: firsthand accounts of UFO abductions (26 page)

They see you from the car.

Yeah, they found me. They were out looking for me.

And what do you say to them? What do they say to you?

“Jill, is that you, Jill?” And they’re so relieved they’re not even mad. And I say, I tell them that I didn’t know it was so late, I didn’t know how it got to be so late. I was just reading in the park. And they say, “We’ve got the police out looking for you. We’ve been worried sick.” And they take me in the car. But they’re not really mad, they’re just so glad. And it sort of amuses them in a way, not immediately, it amuses them that I would get so lost in a book as to lose track of the time.

(Jill Pinzarro, 9, 1957)

Nine-year-old Karen Morgan was abducted with her brother Robby when they wandered off from a group of friends. The time was dusk, and when they missed dinner her parents were concerned.

I can remember floating down. I came from very far away. We were very high up in the sky, it seemed to me. And when I was put down they put me down gently.

You were with somebody?

I think it was the little ones. I wish I could remember how I got back down. I wish I could remember how they did that… It seems like… it seems like you’re in a room, and the floor… I feel like I’m right on the open sky, you know? Like, on a stretcher.

Are you lying, or are you standing in this situation?

I’m lying down. I don’t know how they keep you so that you’re not cold. It’s a beautiful, beautiful starry night. And before I go I think, “Where’s Robby? Where’s Robby? Where is he? Where is he? What if they keep him? Where is he?” But then as I’m lowered down I forget it. I have this feeling of being rocked to sleep, and of being… and then they gently put me down. Here’s the trick, I guess—they put me down not where I remember having been, they put me in the wrong place, sort of. I mean, at the other end. But when they put me down, there was a period when they left, I guess. And then I really was asleep for a minute. Because when I woke up I was staring up at the stars, thinking, “Wow! That’s what it’s like to be unconscious!” Not remembering all this stuff, but just staring at the stars and not being able to take my eyes off them.

Do you stand up then?

No. I didn’t. It’s funny the way you remember something, but it didn’t really happen that way. At first I would have said yes, I stood up, but when I think about it I didn’t stand up. I just lay there staring at the stars. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, really. It was very cold. And then I did a very funny thing. I started feeling my body to see if I was paralyzed. And then I thought, “That’s ridiculous. You fell down and hit your head,”

Did you go home then?

I went right home.

And what happened when you walked in the door.

I was confused. I was confused.

Did your mother say something to you?

She said, “Where have you been? You missed dinner.” I said, “No, no, no, no. I was playing at the Murphys’ and then I hit my head, Mom, and I was unconscious. I never was unconscious before.” I said, “I really saw stars!” And she said, “Oh, that’s ridiculous. I’ve been calling and calling you. How could you have been unconscious?” I said, “But I was. I was!” I had a terrible temper as a kid. I was getting very agitated. My father came out. He said, “Where have you been? Was Robby with you?” I said, “Robby wasn’t even playing with us.” I said, “I fell and hit my head and I became unconscious. I never was unconscious before. Don’t you care? Isn’t that interesting?” I was all excited. And my father said, “When did that happen?” And then my mother took her finger and she went like that in front of my eyes to see if I could follow it [she gestures]. Because with all the kids everyone was always hitting their heads. And she said, “You don’t seem to have a concussion.” And my father said, “Do you have a bump on your head?” And I said, “No, it doesn’t even hurt. I think I slipped on the ice.” And he said, “No, I don’t think so, Karen. You don’t just fall down and hit your head and get unconscious and jump up usually, especially if you’ve been lying outside.” I said, “But Dad, I was!” He said, “Well, if you left the Murphys’, what time did you leave the Murphys’? They’ve been in for hours!” And I said, “At dinner time, around five-thirty, five o’clock.” He said, “Well, you couldn’t have been out this long. It wouldn’t have been possible.” He said. “We’ve been so worried about you and Robby. Where is he? Where has he been?” I said, “I don’t know. He wasn’t with me—I was all alone.” I said, “Well, I really
was
unconscious.” That’s all I remember.

(Karen Morgan, 9, 1958)

Aside from being missed by people, there are sometimes odd inaccuracies about the return trip that alert the abductee to the idea
that something might have happened to her, although she has no idea what that might be. From time to time the abductee does not return to exactly the same place. It may be a matter of a few feet or some miles. When Patti Layne was floated back to her college dorm, she landed in her roommate’s bed. The startled roomie woke up with a jump, and a confused Patti made up a story on the spur of the moment, saying that she had received a crank call against her life and she was scared. After a later abduction in the same dorm room, she woke up on the bathroom floor. All her toiletry articles were scattered around the floor. What had happened was a mystery to her.

Others have come to consciousness driving their cars miles away from where they should have been—not just down the road but on a completely different highway. Steve Thompson had a far more frightening return with a friend of his while on a trip across Texas. They were sleeping in a car on a small street near a main highway outside of Dallas when they were both abducted. The next thing they knew, Steve, who had been in the back seat, was driving on the wrong side of the highway with oncoming traffic. His friend yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” and Steve, suddenly aware of where he was, quickly got back over to the right side of the road.

Lynn Miller came to consciousness many miles away from where her car had been stopped. She was outside of her car on a strange road in an area of New Jersey that she had never been to before. She got back in the car, started it up, and drove down the road for a few miles, not knowing where she was. When she approached a small town, she instinctively made a left turn at a flashing yellow light. That road got her back to a main highway, and she was able to eventually get home two hours later than she should have.

Many abductees have returned to find oddities about their clothes and bodies. It is not unusual for people to notice that their pajamas or nightgowns are on inside out when they felt certain that they had put them on the correct way the night before. Others have woken up to find their underpants folded on the foot of their bed after they had gone to bed wearing them. Some abductees have reported that their clothes were draped around a chair when they woke up in the morning.

Lynn was abducted from a tent outside of Los Angeles in 1988. The aliens took her right through the screen window inside the tent. When she returned she walked through the underbrush to get to the
tent and then floated back through the screen window. She got into her sleeping bag and then took off her socks because they had picked up ground material from the walk. When she awoke in the morning, she was puzzled and surprised to find her socks outside of the sleeping bag and leaves and twigs inside it.

Karen had to wear a bite plate on the palate of her mouth for her teeth each night. She put it in with pressure, creating a vacuum on the roof of her mouth, then attached it to rubber bands hooked to her braces to keep it in place. One night she had an abduction experience and the focus of the abduction was the bite plate. The aliens took it out without too much difficulty, but when it came time for Karen to go, they were not able to put it back into her mouth. They tried and tried but could not achieve the suction necessary to hold it in place. Eventually they gave up. When Karen woke up in the morning, her bite plate was on her stomach. It was puzzling because she had never had it come out of her mouth before or since; one would expect that if it were to come out, it would fall onto her tongue, or into her throat, most probably waking her up, or it simply would fall on the pillow. But finding it resting on her stomach was disconcerting.

Sometimes abductees wake up in odd positions. They might come to consciousness sitting up in bed or slumped forward over their knees. They might regain full consciousness standing next to their bed and wonder how they got there. They might find themselves on top of the covers when they never sleep outside the covers.

Often abductees notice strange marks on their bodies the morning after an abduction. They find bruises, black-and-blue marks, and rashes, and they have no idea how they got there. One woman woke up in the morning after an event with fourteen black-and-blue marks on her legs. Nosebleeds in the middle of the night are another common occurrence after returning. With no discernible trauma, the abductee wakes up in the morning and the bed and pillows are covered with blood. This happens to both children and adults.

Sometimes women wake up with a sticky, clear substance running from their genitals down their legs. They are at a loss to explain this; the substance quickly dries. Other men and women have discovered unusual stains on their bedclothes. They were absolutely certain that the stains were not there when they went to bed the previous night. Almost all abductees wake up feeling tired, restless, agitated. They
feel that they have not had a good night’s sleep and that they have been “through the mill.”

When the episode is over, amnesia sets in. Abductees might remember something for a few seconds or, in some cases, for a few hours, and, of course, some experiences are fully remembered, but generally the memory is blocked immediately afterward. We do not know how this is accomplished. It might be a function of the alteration in consciousness that all abductees experience as part of the abduction itself. There is little evidence to suggest that the aliens specifically tell the abductee not to remember something as if with a posthypnotic suggestion. Yet when abductees first begin to relate their stories to an investigator, it is often with a sense of guilt and betrayal. They feel that they should not be telling anyone about these experiences. This sense of guilt can occasionally be so deep that it effectively prevents an abductee from talking about his or her experiences.

The return is the end of the physical abduction itself. But the abduction experience does not end there. Whether the abductees remember the abduction or not, their lives can be profoundly affected.

Ever since the beginning of the UFO phenomenon, witnesses have claimed to have seen alien beings near UFOs. The majority described small aliens with large heads and eyes, although a variety of sizes and shapes of Beings were reported. It was nearly impossible for researchers to learn anything about the Beings simply on the basis of these sightings. Writing in 1969, a UFO research team could say only that the aliens appeared to be curious and cautious. Very little was known about the details of their appearance and still less about their behavior.
¹
However, the vast accumulation of abduction reports has now provided a wealth of detailed information about these aliens. At last we know enough about their activities and appearance to paint a preliminary portrait of these enigmatic Beings.

Aliens do things that seem like magic to us. They make humans and their clothes go through solid matter like windows, walls, and ceilings. They cause themselves, humans, and other matter to be invisible when they are outside the confines of the UFO. By using light beams, they transport victims and even their automobiles to their destination. They seem to have a monitoring ability that enables them not only to find their victims but also to determine the biologically appropriate time for an abduction.

Some of their greatest abilities come in the area of human mind manipulation. They alter consciousness and affect people’s anticipatory powers. They modify visual perceptions so that people have difficulty seeing objects close to them or discerning spatial relationships well. They interfere with people’s volition and force them to do things against their will—and they can do this from afar. They mitigate fear and stop physical pain. They institute selective amnesia, communicate telepathically, and create complex images and scenarios in people’s minds. They generate at will sexual arousal and emotions such as love, fear, and anxiety. They produce orgasm with mind manipulation. They make people love them. The ability of humans to control the situation and force their own wills upon their abductors is severely limited. In many ways the aliens seem all-powerful.

Yet they display an awareness of limitations. It appears that the aliens cannot proceed with their breeding program without the involvement of human beings. For whatever reasons, they are fearful of being detected—hence they use clandestine methods of abduction. They seem to be afraid of human power. They treat humans gingerly, as if they were zookeepers handling sleeping gorillas, fearful that they might wake and become uncontrollable. They often assign two or more Small Beings to handle an individual human, and they are very cautious. They keep careful mental and physical control. They sometimes put restraints on their victims’ arms and legs.

The aliens are highly routinized. They seldom change their pattern of activity to suit the abductee. They are focused on their tasks, regardless of momentary circumstances. Some abductees have speculated that the general behavior of the aliens suggests they have difficulty doing several things at once.

Who—or what—are these aliens? No solid evidence exists to indicate whether they are living beings, manufactured beings that act as sentient physical beings, a combination of the two, or something entirely different. But they do have a physical being.