Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

An important factor in understanding the psychology of the abduction experience is that the great majority of these experiences take place at night, often when the abductee is in bed or asleep. Some abductees even initially describe their experiences as dreams. There is a very common phenomenon that is well known to psychologists and sleep researchers, but is almost unknown outside the field, although its effects are fairly well known—that pleasant state of drowsiness that occurs in between being fully awake and fully asleep, usually called hypnagogia . During this state, people experience dreamlike hallucinations. However, since they are not fully asleep, the experiences seem to be very real. (It’s not by chance that most ghosts—chapter 3—are also reported when the witness is in bed sleeping or in a hypnagogic state). In most cases, the hypnagogic hallucination is a simple one—hearing someone call your name, for example. It’s important to understand that this is not simply imagining that you hear your name being called. When I imagine that experience, I consciously call up the sound of someone calling “Terry Hines.” But in the hypnagogic state, you actually seem to hear your name. It’s a much more direct experience than imagination. Occasionally the hallucinations will be much more elaborate and will involve not only auditory, but visual and even tactile experiences. During this state, the body is paralyzed and movement isn’t possible. If the hallucination is a frightening one, this inability to escape can only add to the terror. These events can be impressive to the “experiencer,” to say the least.

Several years ago I had a very dramatic such experience. At the time my then-seven-year-old daughter, Clare, was living with her mother in Moscow while I lived in New York State. It was in January 1998, just a few days after Clare had flown back to Moscow. I awoke around 3 A.M. one Sunday morning, heard Clare climb out of her bed down the hall from my room, and felt the vibrations as she walked down to my room. I further felt her climb onto my bed, as she often did in the mornings when she thought Daddy was sleeping too late! In addition to the sensory experience, there was a very strong sense of Clare’s “presence.” All this time I was completely paralyzed so I couldn’t turn and look at her. But the sensory experiences were as real as if they had been actually happening. Of course, I knew this was a hypnopompic hallucination and was fascinated by its reality. As soon as I broke the paralysis, the sensory experience abruptly stopped and Clare’s “presence” vanished.

Imagine a similar experience on the part of someone who, like the vast majority of people, has never heard of the hypnopompic state and for whom the hallucination is of a frightening nature—having an alien being in the room, for example. This can be the start of a seemingly very real alien abduction experience. Baker (1996) has noted that these experiences in the past have been interpreted in the context of the times. For example, in medieval times, hypnopompic hallucinations were the source of reports of scary nighttime visits from incubi. In Newfoundland culture, there is the legend of the “old hag,” a terrible spirit in the shape of an old woman who terrifies people in the night (Effis 1988)—another manifestation of this kind of hallucination. With one exception, I know of no common references in Western (specifically American) culture to these hallucinations. The one such reference comes from an unlikely place: the words to the lovely theme song from the Muppet Movie (1979), “The Rainbow Connection” by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher. The first two lines of the third verse are: “Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I’ve heard them calling my name.”

Of course, not everyone who has a frightening hypnopompic experience involving aliens will interpret it as being a real alien visitation and kidnapping. But some will, especially since they have no alternative explanation to fall back on. As publicity about alien abductions became more and more widespread in the 1980s, such abductions became more and more available to people seeking an explanation for their experiences. After all, here were thousands of other people, some going on national television with their experiences, almost all fully believing they had been abducted. Those on TV, as noted, came across as quite normal—perhaps traumatized, and understandably so, but normal nonetheless. If that is what happened to them, it was quite natural to adopt abduction as an explanation for one’s own experience.

As the 1980s progressed, the abduction experience became part of American cultural knowledge. In fact, it had been around the fringes for some time. It had been a theme in science fiction for decades. Kottmeyer (1989, cited in Newman and Baumeister 1996) has traced the themes in abduction reports as far back as those of the Hills to science fiction films and television programs. Some abduction experiences have the victim “transported” up to the alien ship in a beam of light (which no one else ever sees, of course), very much as in Star Trek. The 1993 release of the film Fire in the Sky elevated Travis Walton’s tall tale to the silver screen. In addition, there were numerous television programs, both fictional and labeled as nonfiction, that acquainted viewers with the details of what is likely to happen when one gets abducted.

In 1996 the PBS series Nova presented an examination of abduction claims titled “Kidnapped by UFOs?” In one telling sequence, Budd Hopkins goes to Florida to investigate a presumed abduction case involving a young couple and their two children. The wife tells of a late-night experience in which she had what she later interprets as an abduction experience. She is very explicit about how she concluded that she had been abducted. She says couldn’t figure out what had happened to her until, by chance, she read Hopkins’s book Intruders —and then it all “just fit so perfectly” and she contacted Hopkins to ask him to investigate. It’s fascinating to watch him do so as he hypnotizes her and then conducts interviews with her two young children. Using not-too-subtle leading questions and other techniques, he elicits what, for him, is strong evidence that this family has suffered from abductions. It is impossible (at least for me) to describe in words the absurdity of the conclusions that Hopkins draws from his obviously flawed methods, which I think he employs in good faith. The reader who has any interest in this topic should really get a copy of the video and watch it.

In another sequence in “Kidnapped by UFOs?” a woman who had gone undercover to investigate what goes on in John Mack’s UFO abduction support groups reported that before she even met him he had sent her a package of literature about what goes on during an abduction and that it was very obvious from that literature what an abduction experience was supposed to be like. It’s clear from the above that many people who contact Hopkins, as well as other alien abduction gurus, are very familiar with the “script” of an abduction well before they actually meet the guru, and are often hypnotized to obtain more memories. As noted earlier, hypnosis is an excellent means for producing false memories, especially when leading questions are asked of the person under hypnosis and when the hypnotist, a strong authority figure, pressures the person to have particular types of memories. This is the standard operating procedure for obtaining abduction reports via hypnosis.

“Kidnapped by UFOs?” also documents the use of another technique of persuasion—group pressure in the context of group therapy. Hopkins and Mack, at least, run support groups for abduction “survivors.” In a taped sequence of one such group meeting, it was obvious that some group members were pressuring others to accept the “reality” of their memories of the experience. Over time, such group pressure—and the considerable social rewards the group can use to reinforce the acceptance of belief in one’s own abduction experiences—can lead to a powerful belief in their reality.