From: density4@cts.com (Blue Resonant Human)
Subject: IUFO: ::: Abductions: The Boundary Deficit Hypothesis :::
Date: 13 Dec 1997 01:28:43 -0500
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Abductions: The Boundary Deficit Hypothesis
1988 by Martin Kottmeyer


As claims about the reality of alien abductions multiply, the 
assertion is increasingly heard that psychology offers little or 
no insight into how such experiences could occur if they are 
unreal.  Abductees are normal people.  Tests prove it.  How, 
then, could normal people make such impossible claims as those 
found in abduction narratives and not be right?  If this 
assertion is true, the theatre version of the UFO phenomenon is 
in jeopardy.  To the extent that the UFO phenomenon is a genre 
of theatre and an expression of the human imagination, it must 
be amenable to psychological study.  Clearly this is a paradox 
that needs to be addressed.

Drama is quintessentially involved with conflict, the exercise 
of power.  Aliens and their magical technology represent an 
elementary extreme in the spectrum of power relationships seen 
in theatre.  The vitality of the UFO mythos lies precisely in 
its ability to provoke fear and desire over the power symbolised 
in the role of the alien.  Studies of UFO belief repeatedly  
implicate the frustration of the will to power. (1)

The clearest evidence for this fact is Stephen P. Resta's study 
which found strength of UFO belief is well correlated with 
externality, a generalised attitude that one has little control 
over one's life. (2)

The significant correlation between UFO belief and belief in 
witches, necromancy, and ghosts doubtless derives from this 
general sense of powerlessness. (3)  Witchcraft in some form
is found in all societies and practised most avidly by those 
lacking, but desiring, power.  A subtle sociological datum worth 
noting is Donald Warren's Gallup poll analysis which found 
elevated levels of UFO belief among individuals who failed to 
achieve the economic level of status that their education would 
lead society to expect. (4)

UFO reports themselves give ample testimony to the predominance 
of powerlessness as a shaping factor of UFO experiences.  The 
dominant emotion in reports is fear.  If UFOs represent a symbol 
of wholeness, as Jungians claim, this is assuredly a counter-
intuitive finding.  We should see serenity and fulfilment.
UFOs, in the great majority of cases, behave like agents of 
chaos.  Vehicles lose power.  Witnesses are paralysed.  Life
is disrupted.  Entropy reigns.  Abduction is so natural an 
extension of the core of UFO belief, the mystery is not that
it appeared, but why it took so long as it did to be accepted.

Even a person totally naive in psychological analysis should be 
able to satisfy himself that the overarching theme of abduction 
narratives is powerlessness.  This is manifest not in the mere 
sense of capture and involuntary scrutiny, but in the extra-
ordinary variety of dramatic intrusions imposed on the abductee.
Among the accounts in the literature one will find pain inflicted
in many different parts of the body including the head, the neck,
the chest, the stomach, the back, and the navel.  Needles,
absurdly big at times, are used to penetrate a variety of points
including the nose, the arm, the navel, an eye socket with the
eye removed, and wires have been inserted into one man's penis
and anus.  Organs have been removed and replaced.  Sometimes the
body is completely ripped apart and put back together.  One
abductee had her eye scraped with a knife.  Some people have
their limbs pulled sharply, their hair pulled, even their head
pulled and squeezed by aliens.  Abductees are subjected to rape,
castration, impregnation, abortion, choking, drowning, freezing,
bleeding profusely, temporary blinding, hand cramps, being
stripped, having their brains scrambled, and being confronted
with their personal phobia.

Abductees have also reported sensations of weakness, of hurtling 
or tumbling through space, of spinning, of being stuck, of being 
buried alive, and, once, of crashing to the ground with a saucer.
Though there is no reason to be discerned in such a pattern, 
there is clearly a rhyme with the theme being unfolded.

It should be no surprise that intense expressions of powerlessness
are not unique to ET settings.  Fictive past-life regressions are
commonly quite dramatic. (5)  In some individuals daytime stream-
of-consciousness fantasies can take on embarrassingly vivid facets
that provoke fear. (6)

Alvin Lawson precedes me in noting the striking correspondence 
between bad LSD trips and abduction experiences in terms not 
only of emotive engagement, but of bizarre somatic threats such 
as umbilical pain being a common narrative sub-plot.  Far and 
away the most useful observation, however, is that nightmares 
provide the ideal model to map abduction experiences.  Nightmares
overwhelmingly involve powerlessness.  They commonly reflect
certain basic fears of childhood: fear of completely dissolving
or being destroyed; fear of mutilation, castration, loss of body
parts; fear of isolation and abandonment; fear of loss of
sustenance and love; and an inability to control the body.  They
are intensely rendered dramas which utilise numerous motifs
familiar among abduction stories: chase, capture, torture,
imminent catastrophe, wild kinetic sensations, and eerie back-
ground scenes.  Regarding the last, it is especially damning how
fog frequently finds its way into abduction tales, this being a
form of artistic license utilised in dozens of SF movies and
programmes and possessing a lineage stretching back to Lovecraft
and probably beyond.

The phenomenon of an introductory eerie silence just prior to 
encountering aliens, a commonplace noted by Raymond Fowler, 
similarly has a lineage that dates back at least to H.G. Wells
and "The War of the Worlds".  As Colin Greenland might say,
everyone subconsciously recognises such things as an Indication
of Monsters. (7)  It follows that the abductionologists' 
appreciation of the "emotional authenticity" and validity of 
abductee writings should not lead us to leap to the conclusion 
that such accounts are materially authentic and valid.  The 
unconscious can and does invest fictions with expressions of 
passion.

It seems logical at this point to ask if the psychology of 
nightmares can throw any light on what is happening in alien 
abduction experiences.  While not all the puzzles of nightmares 
have been solved, psychology has recently made significant 
strides in understanding why some people develop them and others 
do not.  In building a profile of nightmare sufferers Ernest 
Hartmann developed a conceptual model termed boundary theory 
which expands on a set of propositions about boundaries in the 
mind formulated by a handful of earlier psychoanalytic theorists.
It is from Hartmann's study "The Nightmare" that we will 
develop the blueprint of our argument. (8)

Boundary theory begins with the axiom that as the mind matures, 
it categorises experiences.  It walls off certain sets to be 
distinct from other sets.  Boundaries become set up between what 
is self and what is non-self, between sleep and waking 
experiences, between fantasy and reality, passion and reason, 
ego and id, masculine and feminine, and a large host of other 
experiential categories.  This drive to categorise is subject to 
natural variation.  The determinants of the strength of that 
drive appear to be biochemical and genetic and probably have no 
environmental component such as trauma.  When the drive is weak 
the boundaries between categories are thinner, more permeable or 
more fluid.  When the boundaries become abnormally thin one sees 
psychopathologies like schizophrenia.  Hartmann discovered 
individuals who suffer from nightmares have thin boundaries.  
>From this central mental characteristic one can derive a large 
constellation of traits that set these people apart from the 
general population.

>From earliest childhood, people with thin boundaries are 
perceived as "different".  They are regarded as more sensitive 
than their peers.  Thin character armour causes them to be more 
fragile and easily hurt.  They are easily empathic, but dive 
into relationships too deeply too quickly.  Recipients of their 
affection will regard them as uncomfortably close and clinging 
and they are thus frequently rejected.  Experience with their 
vulnerability teaches them to be wary of entering into 
relationships with others.  Adolescence tends to be stormy and 
difficult.  Adult relationships -- whether sexual, marital or 
friendships -- also tend to be unsettled and variable.  A slight 
tendency to paranoia is common.

One-third will have contemplated or attempted suicide.  
Experimentation with drugs tends to yield bad trips and is 
quickly abandoned.  They are usually alert to lights, sounds
and sensations.  They tend to have fluid sexual identities.  
Bisexuals are over-represented in the nightmare sufferers' 
population and it is rare to find manly men or womanly women in 
it.  Macho pigs apparently do not have nightmares.  They are not 
rule followers.  Either they reject society or society rejects 
them.  They are rebels and outsiders.  There is a striking 
tendency for these people to find their way into fields 
involving artistic self-expression; musicians, poets, writers, 
art teachers, etc.  Some develop their empathic tendencies and 
become therapists.  Ordinary BLUE or white collar jobs are rare.

Hartmann believes the predominance of artists results from the 
fact that thin boundaries allow them to experience the world 
more directly and painfully than others.  The ability to 
experience their inner life in a very direct fashion contributes 
to the authenticity of their creations.  They become lost in 
daydreaming quite easily and even experience daymares -- a 
phenomenon people with thick boundaries won't even realise 
exists.  This trait of imaginative absorption should also make 
nightmare sufferers good hypnotic subjects.  (9)  Boundary 
deficits also contribute to fluid memories and a fluid time 
sense.

To be considered a candidate for the hypothesis that one is a 
victim of alien abduction a person must present certain symptoms.
Among the factors which are looked for are conscious memories 
of an abduction, revealing nightmares, missing time, forgotten 
scars, or dramatic reactions to seemingly trivial stimuli like 
distant nocturnal lights.  The last four factors act as 
screening devices to yield a population of boundary deficit 
individuals.  This is blatant in the case of people whose 
candidacy is based on nightmares of aliens.  It is subtler in 
the other symptoms.

People who have thin boundaries in their time sense virtually
by definition will experience episodes of missing time.  People 
with fluid memories could easily lose track of the event that 
led to the creation of a scar.  People with weak ego-id 
boundaries and a sense of powerlessness probably would over-
react to distant inexplicable lights as symbols of power.  These 
candidates, in turn, are subject to further screening by their 
performance under hypnosis.  The thicker the boundary, the less 
likely it is that a convincing narrative will emerge or be 
accepted as emotionally valid.  We would predict the final 
population of abduction claimants would be biased in favour of
a high proportion of boundary-deficit personalities.

The evidence that abductees have boundary-deficit personalities 
is, if not definitive, reasonably convincing.  The points of 
correspondence between abductees and nightmare sufferers are 
several and consistent.

Ufology regards the Slater psychological study of nine abductees 
as an experimentum crucis for the view that abductees are 
victims of real extraterrestrial intrusions.  It affirmed not 
only the normality of abductees, but offered a hint of 
traumatisation in the finding that abductees showed a tendency 
to display distrust and interpersonal caution.  It is time to 
remind everyone, however, of what Slater's full results were 
reported to be.  Slater found abductees had rich inner lives; a 
relatively weak sense of identity, particularly a weak sexual 
identity; vulnerability; and an alertness characteristic of both 
perceptual sophistication and interpersonal caution. (10)

All four of these traits are characteristic of boundary-deficit 
minds.  Clearly the abduction-reality hypothesis is, in this 
instance, unparsimonious.  It fails to explain the presence of 
rich inner lives, weak identities and vulnerability.  (I reject 
Slater's post hoc attempt to account for the weak sexual identity
via childhood trauma induced by involuntary surgical penetrations
as undocumented, and just plain weird.)  It should not be over-
looked that Slater volunteered the opinion that her test subjects
did not represent an ordinary cross-section of the population.
She found some were "downright eccentric or odd" and that the
group as a whole was "very distinctive, unusual, and interesting".
(11)

This nicely parallels Hartmann's observation that boundary-
deficit personalities are perceived as "different" from "normal" 
people.  Slater's study does indeed seem to be an experimentum 
crucis, but the conclusion it points toward is perfectly 
opposite from what ufologists have been assuming.

The boundary-deficit hypothesis evidently can also be invoked to 
explain the unusual proportion of artist-type individuals that I 
discovered in testing Rimmer's hypothesis.  Roughly one-third of 
abductees showed evidence of artistic self-expression in their 
backgrounds in my sample population, as you may recall.
Hartmann's study would also lead us to expect an unusual number
of psychotherapists among abductees.  In a recent paper, Budd
Hopkins reported that in a population of 180 probable abductees 
he found many mental health professionals: two psychiatrists, 
three PhD psychologists and an unstated number of 
psychotherapists with Master's degrees. (12)

It would obviously be child's play to pick and choose isolated 
bits of confirming or discordant biographical information from 
the abductee literature and argue about the fit of Hartmann's 
boundary-deficit profile to various individual cases.  It would 
be a pleasant diversion, but would ultimately not prove much one 
way or the other given the scanty nature of background information
in almost all abduction narratives.  I exempt Whitley Strieber's
autobiography from dismissal, however, for it is both detailed and
highly revealing.

Strieber's experiences resound with emotions of powerlessness.  
He speaks eloquently of the despair, extreme dread, crazed 
terror and panic inspired by his experience.  The incident with 
the faecal probe is recognisably a pseudo-homosexual rape 
fantasy of the form discussed in Ovesey's studies. (13)  As the 
emotions prove, the incident has nothing to do with eroticism 
but everything to do with the expression of powerlessness.  
Psychiatrists would predict that Strieber was repressing 
resentment and hostility from having to be subordinate in an 
undesired social relationship.  The incident with the mind wand
-- "You'll ruin a beautiful mind" -- is more interesting since
it reflects the childhood fear of the dissolution of self.  This 
was very much on Strieber's mind at the time.  We can see it in 
his story "Pain" where his narrator dreams of friendly 
tormentors with a high-powered rifle who he asks to hug him.  
The core of the narrator's identity ebbs away and he suffers 
through the torture of the tearing down of his personality. (14)
Strieber's picture-drama of the world blowing up with horns of 
smoke streaking out from it similarly bespeaks the fear of 
dissolution, since world destructions commonly precede the onset 
of psychosis as the mind projects the internal catastrophe into 
the world at large. (15)

The evidence for thin boundaries in Strieber's personality is 
highly convincing.  Strieber's curious assessment that he is
"80% convinced" of the reality of his experiences immediately 
impresses one that his demarcation between reality and fantasy 
is rather fluid.  Strieber's memory is disturbingly fluid as 
revealed in his willingness to accept another person's word that 
he wasn't present at the historic bell-tower sniper incident at 
the University of Texas -- an event he elsewhere discusses in 
gruesome detail. (16)  The manner in which he strips away his 
memory of past anomalies and tosses them out as screen memory 
fictions covering alien encounters has an almost ghoulish self-
mutilation quality like making his identity self-destruct before 
our eyes.

Strieber is an outsider.  This is less indicated by his 
questioning of Catholic faith than by his seeking spiritual 
values in witchcraft, mysticism and Gurdjieff.  Strieber's wife 
volunteered the opinion that her husband has "a very unique head"
and is openly distressed over the vulnerability he manifests at 
one point.  Strieber confessed he contemplated suicide before 
contacting Budd Hopkins about his fears.  Paranoid mentation is 
clearly evident in his book and has at times led to bizarre 
speculations.  In a radio interview with Tom Snyder, Strieber 
wondered aloud if a gagster who was selling alien abduction 
insurance wasn't a dishonest dupe of Cosmic Watergate because 
ridicule was a known MO of the UFO cover-up. (17)   Strieber's 
encounters with critics consistently show projective hostility 
and a thin character armour, probably best shown in his pre-
emptive strike to Thomas Disch when he found he would be 
reviewing his book "Communion" for The Nation.  Strieber's 
success as a writer of horror fiction lastly clinches the 
argument that he is a boundary-deficit personality.

It is interesting to note, parenthetically, that Strieber also 
manifests a constellation of traits that object-relations theory 
explains as resulting from traumas early in childhood when the 
child is first developing the character armour during the phase 
of separation and individuation.  Prominent among these traits 
are threats of inner fragmentation like those cited above; 
primitive emotional defences including paranoia and, most 
primitive of all, splitting; archaic narcissistic formations 
involving grandiosity; inability to integrate the hostile and 
living aspects of parental introjects; and a tendency to project 
hostility.

A couple of reviewers of "Communion" were quite confused as to 
how Strieber failed to be repelled by the prospect of communion 
with aliens who threatened his beautiful mind and caused such 
body terror as he described.  The answer is found in the trait 
of splitting which allows the individual to hold contradictory 
emotional stances and not see the contradiction.  Strieber never 
developed the higher forms of emotional defence found in those 
with thicker boundaries in adulthood.  If Strieber has indeed 
suffered separation trauma as a child, it is apparent that is 
why communion is such a central concern to him.  He never 
resolved the problem of separating his self from his parental 
object relations.  The upshot of all these observations is that 
Strieber's alien experiences form a unity with the issues of his 
unconscious.  I am 0% convinced of the objective reality of his 
abduction. (18)

In addition to forming a coherent assembly of the known facts 
about the psychology of abductees, the boundary-deficit 
hypothesis is richly testable.  Hartmann's profile offers 
numerous predictions about the inner world of abductees.  Those 
listed above are just a fraction of the possibilities.  If you 
want to know if missing time derives from a fluid time sense or 
a fluid memory, you can test people who report this for 
concomitant phenomena: frequent episodes of deja vu or jamais vu,
primal repression dated to two or three years of age as opposed 
to four or five, days organised according to flexible rather 
than rigid schedules, future plans lacking specific time frames, 
and a tendency to not answer questions in a temporally 
structured pattern.  The core claim about a low categorisation 
drive can be tested by cognitive tests like those cited in a 
book by Theodore Sarbin. (19)

The boundary-deficit proposition has in it the implicit 
resolution of the paradox of how people without significant 
psychopathology can entertain the belief that they are victims 
of alien abduction.  The abduction myth has opportunistic 
features wherein boundary-deficit traits act to justify id 
material crossing ego boundaries being considered real.  Whether 
the crossing is prompted by leaky sleep/wake boundaries (as in "
Communion"'s hypnopompic nightmares) or by the opening of the 
boundary for role-taking behaviour, the narrative material is no 
more evidence of pathology than an  LSD trip is proof that LSD 
is a toxin, (20) or a symphony arising from a composer's 
unconscious can be called a product of psychosis.  Belief in the 
reality of the material need not evoke thin reality/fantasy 
boundaries, since a logic is present within the received myth 
which requires a trusting, or rather distrusting, demeanour for 
its acceptance.  If you have a forgotten scar and a ufologist 
unleashes a creative id to pull together a dramatic nightmare, 
is it illogical to wonder if the myth is right and the nightmare 
explains the scar?  In the context of a belief in furtive 
extraterrestrials, it is not.

As developmental psychologists well understand, unconformative 
behaviour and absurd beliefs often owe more to pathological 
contexts than organic  dysfunction.  If there is any pathology 
to abduction belief it is within the science of ufology itself
-- a point I explore elsewhere. (21)  Normal people will 
necessarily not waste their time or the money needed to develop 
a thoroughgoing scientific judgement on all the facts and 
systems of belief they are exposed to in life.  Since it has 
been a relatively harmless and a glorious entertainment (in 
Jacques Barzun's sense of science as a glorious entertainment) 
the concept of UFOs survives to haunt the imaginations of 
millions and attract the attention of individuals who have been 
the victims of life's conflicts.  From the alchemy of ideas and 
passions transformed by the human unconscious emerges the 
fertile and labyrinthine myth and mystery of the UFO drama.


Notes:

1.  For the best treatment of the will to power concept I 
    recommend Kaufmann, Walter; "Discovering the Mind", Vol. 2, 
    McGraw Hill, 1980

2.  Resta, Stephen P.; "The relationship of anomie and externality
    to the strength of belief in unidentified flying objects",
    dissertation, Loyola College Graduate School, Baltimore,
    Maryland, 30 October 1975.  Resta failed to find a significant
    correlation between anomie and UFO belief.  This could be
    consistent with a paranoid orientation.  Paranoia acts as a
    defence against depression and meaninglessness.

3.  Zusne, Leonard and Jones, Warren H.; "Anomalistic Psychology",
    Lawrence Erlbaum, 1982, 184-185

4.  Warren, Donald I.; "Status inconsistency theory and flying 
    saucer sightings", Science, 170 (6 November 1970), 137

5.  Watson, Ian; "All in the Mind", Doubleday, 1984, 137

6.  Caughey, John L.; "Fantasy worlds and self-maintenance in 
    contemporary American life", Zygon, 23, No.  2 (June 1988),
    138, n. 3

7.  Greenland, Colin; "An indication of monsters"; in Slusser, 
    George E. and Rabkin, Eric S.; "Aliens: The Anthropology of 
    Science Fiction", Southern Illinois University, 1987, 208-217

8.  Hartmann, Ernest; "The Nightmare: The Psychology and Biology 
    of Terrifying Dreams", Basic Books, 1984

9.  Sarbin, Theodore R.  and Coe, William, C.; "Hypnosis: A 
    Social Psychological Analysis of Influence Communication",
    Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1972

10. "Abductees are "normal" people", International UFO Reporter,
    9, No. 4 (July/August 1984), 10-12

11. Bloecher, Ted; Clamar, Aphrodite; and Hopkins, Budd; "Final 
    Report on the Psychological testing of UFO Abductees", Fund
    for UFO Research, 1985

12. Hopkins, Budd; "UFO Abductions - the Skeleton Key", "MUFON
    1988 International UFO Symposium Proceedings", 105

13. Karlen, Arno; "Sexuality and Homosexuality: A New View",
    W.W. Norton, 1971

14. Etchison, Dennis; "Cutting Edge", Doubleday, 1986, 279-280

15. Eidelberg, Ludwig; "Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis", Free 
    Press, 1968, 351

16. Strieber, Whitley; "On the road (with visitors)", 
    International UFO Reporter, January/February 1987, 9. Winter, 
    Douglas; "Faces of Fear", Berkeley Books, 1985, 192-206

17. Tom Snyder interview with Whitley Strieber, WIS Radio, 
    Chicago, 2 March 1988

18. Meissner, W.W.; "Narcissistic personalities and borderline
    conditions: a differential diagnosis"; in Morrison, Andrew P.
    (ed.); "Essential Papers on Narcissism", New York University
    Press, 1966, 403-437.  Rinsley, Donald B.; "Borderline and
    Self Disorders: A Developmental and Object relations
    Perspective", Jason Aronson, 1982

19. Sarbin, Theodore and Mancuso, James C.; "Schizophrenia: 
    Medical Diagnosis or Moral Verdict?", Pergamon, 1980, 203-206

20. LSD acts specifically on the dissolution of mental 
    boundaries.  Stanislav Grof's studies of LSD experiences reveal
    systematic correspondence to Hartmann's profile of boundary-
    deficit experience.  Hartmann even reports that some of the
    nightmare sufferers volunteer the observation that they don't
    need LSD because their lives are always like a trip!  Most
    criticism of Lawson's birth trauma study I have heard fails
    to display any recognition of his primary discovery, namely
    that Grof's "Realms of the Human Unconscious" provides the
    blueprint to the emotional subtext of UFO experiences.  To
    me, the concern over foetal self-imagery being the origin of
    the humanoid image is a side issue and a distraction.  Reading
    Grof for oneself after being immersed in a series of abduction
    reports gives one a much better appreciation of Lawson's
    excitement.  It clicks.

21. "Ufology considered as an evolving system of paranoia", 
     Artifex, forthcoming

>From Magonia, 32, March 1988.
http://www.magonia.demon.co.uk/magarc.htm



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One of the principles of good, effective disinformation is that 
you psychologically manipulate the environment so that people will 
not  know what they are looking at, even if they see it. Another is
that the creation of very similar, hoaxed decoy cases - if 
strategically executed and played out -  will hide the real 
phenomenon, or at least draw peoples' attention away from the 
real events. And yet another is that if all else fails, and the 
secrecy is ended, people will be so confused about the real versus 
the memorex, that they will be easily manipulated to the covert 
project's agenda.

All of this is at play in the UFO field, and the cornerstone of t
his disinformation effort is the so-called 'abduction phenomenon'. 

Consider this for just a moment: There is a top secret Canadian 
document, written by Wilbur Smith, which states that , in 1950, 
the UFO matter was the most secret project in the US, surpassing 
even the secrecy surrounding the development of the hydrogen bomb! 
In 1996, the secret is even bigger, and the resources used to 
maintain the secrecy many orders of magnitude greater than that of
1950.  Moreover, the technological resources available to this 
covert project involve reverse-engineered ET technology,  in the 
form of operational craft, non-linear communications capabilities, 
and biological 'cloned' entities. It is not hard from this to see 
that extraordinary resources have been used to maintain the secrecy
of this subject. 

Everyone in counter-intelligence knows that really good 
disinformation contains some elements of the truth, thereby making
the false information or events more believable to the targeted
recipients.  In the area of alleged UFO 'abductions', by simulating
false, but believable, alien encounters, a number of objectives are
accomplished:

     >Actual ET events are lost amid the mounting cases of hoaxed, 
simulated cases. As mentioned earlier, the real gold nuggets get 
buried under a mountain of fools gold - and very few researchers 
know that they should be doing assays...

     >By overwhelming the 'sound' of actual ET events with the 
'noise' of simulated ones of an increasingly implausible nature, 
the civilian research community is not only thrown off track by 
pursuing false cases, it is increasingly discredited.  The wilder 
and more absurd the scenarios are which are fed to victims of human
covert abductions, the more the general scientific and media 
communities view the entire field as so much nonsense.  In this 
way, human initiated covert abductions not only serve as decoys in 
the UFO civilian research community, but serve to avert serious 
inquiry from the 'mainstream' scientific and media communities. It 
is a master stroke of disinformation, which the civilian community 
has swallowed hook, line and sinker.

     >The use of reverse-engineered ET communications technology 
for disinformation purposes via abductions and the like also allows
for the testing of such systems to evaluate their efficacy and 
reliability.  For those who believe that the testing of such 
'non-lethal' weapons on the civilian population by covert 
operations is unthinkable, remember the covert testing of 
radioactive substances on innocent civilians during the Cold War.   
In 1993, the Department Of Energy (formerly Atomic Energy 
Commission) and its leader, Hazel O'Leary, released documents
disclosing the fact that innocent civilians had been deliberately 
contaminated with plutonium and other toxic radioactive substances 
to simply see what the effect would be. It was reported that
plutonium was actually put on the oatmeal of children in an 
orphanage to see what effect it would have! The same sociopathic 
excesses of those secret plutonium testing projects are being
replayed in spades in the civilian sector with simulated ET 
abductions of innocent humans, so-called cattle mutilations (also 
largely of covert human origin) and related covert projects. We may
not want to believe this, because it seems just too horrible. But 
the longer we live in denial, the more we will be led down the 
primrose path of deception and the manipulation of our minds and
emotions.

     >Most disturbing are the apparent underlying motives and 
agendas driving these covert human projects dealing with abductions
and the like.  Aside from the deflective, decoy value described 
above, the content of the hoaxed human initiated abduction 
experience is decidedly negative, xenophobic, fear-inducing and 
anger-inducing. To what end?  Could it be that both the 'abductees'
and the millions who learn of their horrifying experiences through 
books, videos, TV specials and movies are being prepared to hate 
the 'alien presence' and thereby accept, somewhere down the road, 
the sacrifices needed to engage in interplanetary war?  And who 
would benefit from such a 'star wars' scenario?  The military-
industrial complex. The very same interests about whom we were 
warned by no less a figure than 5 star general and conservative 
republican president Ike Eisenhower.  After all, the classic uses 
of psychological warfare were (and are) related to preparing a 
civilian population to hate the enemy, and to be so animated in 
that direction that any sacrifice would be made to fight them.   
Could it be that we are now being so manipulated, so that we will 
collectively accept the costs of building the capability for
interplanetary war - a capability which would extract trillions 
of dollars from the world economy?

     Actually, it appears to be even worse than this. 

     We have learned, by investigating the ties, proclivities and 
beliefs of a number of people connected to abduction programs, that
there is a clear aeschatological bent to their endeavors. This 
means that part of the agenda is serving the bizarre, religious  
purpose of resurrecting satan in the form of ET, and fanning the 
flames of a future 'holy war' against them, to coincide with the 
end of the world.  I know this sounds bizarre and unbelievable (it 
was very difficult to accept when it first came to my attention) 
but it is one of the very deep, dark and frightening sub-texts of 
the entire ET issue.  For those awaiting the end of the world with 
the changing of the millennium,  what better vehicle than to frame
the 'final conflict' between humanity and evil invaders from outer 
space?  More than a few people in the UFO subculture, who present
themselves as impartial scientists and / or benefactors, hold to 
this paradigm. And deliberate actions are being taken to fulfill 
it.

On one occasion, I had the opportunity to meet with a foreign head 
of state, who has an interest in this subject.  Over the course of 
an hour and a half to 2 hour meeting, I learned, to my horror, that
this leader was doing everything he could to see that the world 
knew about the evil, sinister and manipulative agenda of the 
'aliens' by advancing the world's knowledge of abductions! Worse, 
I was categorically informed that every set-back in human history, 
every international conflict, and the very basis of the 
non-fulfillment of human potential, since Adam and Eve, was the 
result of the nefarious manipulations of the 'aliens' !  After 
mostly listening politely for an hour and a half,  I let this 
leader know that this was not at all our assessment of the 
situation. 

Later I learned of this person's ties to fringe religious groups, 
and also a network of similar leaders and benefactors of abduction 
'research' which has ties to bizarre end-of - the- world religious 
groups, who demonize the ET presence to fit the current religious 
paradigm. And the anchor for all of this is the abduction 
'phenomenon'.

If the reader is not concerned by now, check your pulse. 

Now, it is not clear if these bizarre beliefs are fundamental to 
the covert programs, or simply an intended out-growth of them. That
is, it is likely that these leaders and benefactors have been 
manipulated into this assessment by covert projects dealing with 
abductions and mutilations, and they have created a way to fit the
'reality' of abductions into their religious belief systems, as it
pertains to the 'end times'.  Such persons may themselves be 
victims of manipulation, and they are responding to the 'content' 
of the 'abduction syndrome'  in a predictable way, given their
religious beliefs.

Nevertheless, the deception, hoax and manipulation which all of 
this represents is effective, because most humans are, alas, easily
deceived and especially vulnerable to manipulations of their fears 
of 'invasion'.  Since cave man and tribal times, to the war in 
Bosnia of the 1990s, one of the basic fears of peoples around the 
world has been that of invasion, and (no coincidence) the abduction
of women and children by the invaders.  It is such a basic fear, 
that it is easily manipulated. We would suggest that this primal 
fear of abduction, rooted in the ancient collective history and 
consciousness of humanity, has been used to skillfully manipulate 
and inflame the fears of extraterrestrial life forms.  

We have, collectively, been all too willing to take this bait.

Even the lexicon developed in the UFO subculture - the 'abduction 
by aliens' - is inherently xenophobic and draws sweeping 
conclusions about the ET presence, which are unwarranted by the 
objective facts.   And we have learned that when others, who have 
done their homework on covert capabilities in this regard, have 
attempted to point this possibility out to the UFO community, they 
have been shouted down and ultimately black-balled from events. The
true-believers in the abduction scenario do not want to consider 
that there are covert capabilities (and have been for decades) 
which can simulate an 'alien abduction', totally using 
reverse-engineered ET technologies. 

How do we know about these capabilities?  Research, investigation,
interviewing knowledgeable people who have had involvement with 
these technologies, and personal experience. Over a 3-4 year 
period, we have interviewed individuals with top-secret clearances
in areas related to electronic mind control and related 
technologies.  What we have learned is best summarized by a 
statement from Officer W-1: ' Technologies exist, which are ready, 
off-the-shelf capable, and which can fit in a panel truck or on 
an antennae in a city, which can totally induce an experience.
If it is desired, a targeted person - or group of people - can be 
made to have a conversation with their personal God, and they will 
believe it is real, and they will pass a lie detector that it is
real, because for them it is real...'

We have identified people who recall, despite chemical 
'deprogramming ' over a three day period, being in special 
para-military units and being 'abductors'. That is, these 
individuals were used to 'abduct' civilians, in an elaborate and 
technologically exotic hoax.  These humans were the abductors, not
the extraterrestrials.  But the technology, reverse-engineered from
the ETs, is so good, that unless one knew to look for a hoax this 
good, one would be forever deceived. 

And yes, these projects have had the capability for decades to 
place 'implants' into humans (and animals) for the purpose of not 
only tracking and reconnaissance, but for inducing specific
experiences. 

Worse yet, these capabilities have been used to 'abduct', 
intimidate and deceive world leaders on this subject, and to 
specifically get them to maintain the secret status of these 
programs. 

Specifically, the abduction of a certain past MAJOR world leader 
was orchestrated by covert forces attempting to end a planned 
disclosure on this subject by this leader, the US President, the
head of the USSR and others. A first hand witness, who is friends 
with this world leader and is himself a head of state, has related
the details of this abduction to me personally. It was an 
effective, if horrible attempt to frighten these world leaders into
ending their plans to disclose the UFO information to the world at
the end of the cold war. Both this world leader, and the head of 
state and friend who related this to me, did not know that this 
event was done by covert human forces. They thought it was an 
actual alien abduction!

And the message offered to this world leader, by these hoaxed 
aliens? 'Cease your plans to disclose our presence to the world, 
or we can and will abduct every world leader involved...' How
convenient.  Notwithstanding the fact that in this same time frame 
ET craft were being seen in a massive wave in Belgium, and one 
would soon begin in the volcanic zone of Mexico and around Mexico 
City, we are to believe that the ETs would abduct a world leader to
hide their presence!

This, I am told, 'blew up like an atomic bomb in the White House', 
and all plans to effect a disclosure on this subject were ended, 
forthwith and forever.

Recently, I have learned of a group of researchers who have 
independently identified a covert operative who was involved in 
'abducting' a woman in California and who was, not coincidentally, 
in the security detail for the world leader the night of the 'alien
abduction'.  It does not take a rocket scientist to see what the 
agenda is here, and how all of us have been manipulated into a 
belief in the 'abduction syndrome', and our leaders intimidated 
into inaction.

I realize that this information is harder to accept than (even) the
idea that we are being visited by extraterrestrial life forms.  But
that is the point.  These secret projects are so bizarre and
sociopathic, that they are their own best cover.  Who would believe
it?  And by manipulating the images and ideas in the public domain 
on this subject, we are led to either disgust and rejection of the 
entire phenomenon, or to anger and hate toward the visitors.  How 
convenient...

It is time for the civilian research community to get serious about
this matter.  We must do our homework, and ask the hard questions.  
We must become knowledgeable regarding what the true covert human 
capabilities are, and man induced abductions.  
We must be more restrained and cautious, and avoid sweeping, 
paranoic pronouncements regarding so called 'alien agendas', since 
the events upon which we base such assumptions may be of a very 
human origin.

>From what we have learned from first hand witnesses to covert 
capabilities, covert reverse-engineering projects, and covert human
abductions, we need to take another very hard look at the entire 
'alien abduction' syndrome, as it is currently described.  I 
believe that the entire data base on this matter has to be taken 
apart and rebuilt, using a more inclusive cosmology, which includes
not only ET/Human interactions, but also, other experiences as 
described earlier, and, most importantly, covert human capabilities
and disinformation programs.  

Not all that glitters is gold, and discerning this fact, by our 
leaders and the public, may determine whether we are manipulated 
into a future of inter-planetary conflict, or instead, choose a 
future of rational and peaceful engagement.

For the sake of the earth, and the generations which follow us, I 
hope we are wise enough to choose peace.

Steven M. Greer M.D.
Director of CSETI
5 November 1996





                  ~~~Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
                       Life is but an empty dream!
                     For the soul is dead that slumbers,
                       And things are not what they seem.~~~

                                   

                                     

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