Conversations with Dr. John Mack

Interesting article over at The UFO Iconoclast(s) by Anthony Bragalia, regarding interviews and discussions he had with John Mack in the early 90s:

The Fabrication of Alien Abduction: My Conversations with Dr. John Mack

Clarification on a Statement

In my last article, Ufology: Live at Budokan I used the term "non-biased therapists."

In his article, The Illusion of Objectivity, Arvin Hill points out:

"It would be easier to prove the existence of highly advanced non-human, trans-human or non-corporeal intelligent lifeforms than prove the existence of non-biased therapists or hypnosis specialists"

I agree with this, but would like to make a clarification on my use of the term 'non-bias,' which may not need to be made, but here it is in case there is any confusion:

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Ufology: Live at Budokan

It is often said that within ufology, the internal dialog is often more about it’s players than the phenomenon itself. While this is probably true in many fields of interest, it seems to glare more harshly in ufology.

In fact, ufology feels so propelled by the celebrity aspect, that it makes one wonder if there is really a true and deep interest in the subject by certain names, or if it’s a vessel for mediocre fame by those who might not otherwise gain notoriety. Big in Japan.

Hey, it worked for Cheap Trick.

In the case of abduction research and hypnotic regression, names like Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs are reminiscent to some of old-Hollywood royalty: even if they’re bad actors, they still get the headlines. And like Hollywood, interest is more often placed on the people themselves than the details of their work. Fans tend to cling to the legendary status of the figures they admire and adore, simply because of headlines, causing them to brush away criticism of their work, citing blasphemy.

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Paratopia Magazine: Preview

Paratopia, the brain-child podcast of Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni has entered a new vein in the vesel of a quarterly digital magazine: Paratopia Magazine.

Currently, Paratopia offers a preview which includes two full articles. The Priests of High Strangeness by Carol Rainey, an award-winning PBS documentary filmmaker (and ex-wife to Budd Hopkins), and Tainted, Toxic & Taboo, by Tyler A. Kokjohn, Ph.D, a biochemist and Professor of Microbiology at the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine.

This impressive preview of their first issue demonstrates the tenacity and to-the-point nature we've come to expect from Jeff and Jeremy, and serves as an excellent introduction into this new venture.

Paratopia pulls no punches with this puppy, building ever further on their case against hypnotic regression as a useful tool for abduction research and the lack of accountability by it's major players, namely Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs.

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In Response to an Email Request

And no, it's not a photo of me flashing my tits.

Last week I received an email from a man who thought I might be able to help him understand something about the abduction phenomenon and the claims therein. To protect his privacy, I will not be including his name or contact info, but only the body of his email (including the part where he says I'm attractive).

His email is as follows:

Hi,

I am contacting you just to see if you are a real person, I was not aware there were such attractive women involved with this UFO thing.

Anyway, my major reason for contacting you is to find someone who will answer my question as to why abductees do not have CCD video to provide proof of their claims of a felony kidnapping/abduction committed against them or their loved ones. If any of these people are allowing this to happen without contacting the police I believe this is also a felony or an 'indictable offense' in Canada; i.e., a serious crime, also not reporting a felony is a crime.


-Name withheld

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Are You There Congress? It's Me, Margaret

Damn. People are still pretty bent about that Hawking's statements from the first episode of his new series Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking. I thought it might settle down once everyone actually watched the episode, instead of taking the statement out of a 45 minute context, but what the fuck do I know? I wonder what pissed people off the most -- was it painting extra terrestrial biological entities in human shades? Was it upsetting the folks who have spent an awful lot of time concocting their elaborate little universe, which has been fictionalized and knocked-up for so long that it has blurred the dividing line between perceptions of reality and make-believe? Maybe they just hate motorized wheel chairs.

Who really knows why everyone spit up their Gerber at the idea that an alien civilization could have it in for humanity and our little blue world. Sure, you can run your formulas, pour over philosophical ramblings, and imagine every scenario your limited mind allows, but when you're finished, you're still gonna know jack-shit -- until you come face to face with every alien civilization out there. So, kick back, take a pill, and STFU for a bit. There's certain to be more coming out of the science and paranormal communities to enrage and disgust you, soon enough!

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Speculative Realms

Just wanted to give a quick plug for Speculative Realms. Gary Haden has been blogging about the Emma Woods and David Jacobs chaos for a few of weeks now. I find myself very much enjoying his writing and his perspective.

He has a fairly recent article that takes a break from that whole affair, called The Argument from Ignorance and Skeptical Omniscience. In a nut shell, it breaks down the various kinds of arguments that you run up against when debating paranormal topics with those who have not had experiences themselves.

Anyway, check his site out!

Abduction Round-Table on The Paracast

For those interested in the recent Abduction Hypnotherapy debate, The Paracast is hosting an 'Abduction Round-table' this Sunday, April 4th.

Fom The Paracast website:

Coming April 4: Gene and co-host Christopher O’Brien present an “Ultimate Abduction Round-Table,” featuring Budd Hopkins, Dr. David M. Jacobs and Kevin D. Randle. This is an episode you won’t want to miss!

Jacobs refused to come on the show if Paul Kimball was involved, which to me says that he won't field any confrontational lines of questioning. Kimball has agreed to step back for the sake of the show. I have a feeling it will be a telling interview, regardless -- if you listen between the lines. Of course, as Jeff Ritzmann pointed out, Randle will be there, so some more direct questioning may still ensue.

The Underside of Abduction Hypnotherapy II

I began writing this article in early March but had trouble with the ending. Prompted by Regan Lee, and because of the interview with Emma Woods that aired on Paratopia yesterday, I decided to buckle down and finish it up.

If you haven't caught my post from a couple of weeks ago, The Underside of Abduction Hypnotherapy, it was a brief update regarding an episode of Partaopia in which they aired a recording of a phone dialog between Emma Woods and David Jacobs. As you might imagine, it has stirred the emotions and opinions of many people on either side of the hypnotherapy argument, causing the Paratopia forum, as well as a few others, to erupt with some pretty strong opinions - the main arguments being whether or not abduction scenarios are created during hypnosis sessions by the hypnotist (in this case, David Jacobs), either intentionally or unintentionally, and whether Jacobs acted poorly in his dealings with Ms. Woods.

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The Underside of Abduction Hypnotherapy I

More on this later, but for now:

You have to check out this episode of Paratopia. It is sort of a second part to Episode 55 where they begin to expose hypnotherapy when used in possible abduction cases.

The current episode, Episode 57, deals with the recorded phone conversation between David Jacobs and Emma Woods (both were aware the recordings were being made).

Here is the brief summary Jeremy wrote on the Paratopia Podcast page:

Alien hybrids making threats over instant messenger. Hypnosis sessions conducted over the telephone. Boisterous, arrogant men talking down to a victimized female. This story has it all and then some.

Jeff and Jeremy dissect Emma Woods’ phone conversations with Dr. David Jacobs regarding the termination of their relationship. This episode asks the important question: Who presents the bigger threat to us, aliens or the researchers looking into them? Then we examine the wrongheaded and cruel response to Emma by UFO Watchdog. For her, the hits just keep on coming.

Take a drink every time we repeat this is just our opinion or beg Jacobs to come on our show in this, our most controversial episode to date.

This is, as the hosts point out, void of David Jacobs side of the story, and because of that, they cannot confirm 100% accuracy. You'll have to judge for yourself. They have invited him to be on the show to give his version, but so far he hasn't bitten.

Warning, the recordings are pretty emotional and this could upset some people, so be mindful if you're easily triggered.

Wrapping My Lil' Head Around This

About half-an-hour ago, I received a comment response notification to a post Regan Lee made about my article "Alien Healthcare and How I Got a Unicorn".

Yes, I was criticized by someone (not Regan, to be clear) who used Mayan Prophecy as part of her argument.

I'm not even kidding.

I was a little surprised, to be honest because the post hit me for having an opinion that was the same kind of “non-productive 'Lets trash Salla and Greer and Wilcock and and and' bile that gets spewed around on any of the male-dominant sites.” Because, you know, I'm not allowed to agree with boys about anything. Not only is it the Women in UFOlogy code, but also the Lesbian code (of which I have probably been in breech of for years) *laughs*

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Alien Healthcare and How I Got a Unicorn

What shall we discuss today? Certainly not Disclosure. And I haven't had fries in a while (unless you count two nights ago in which I doused a small batch with salt and malt vinegar), so that's no good. Stan and Jeff haven't done anything particularly zany in the last couple of weeks, either, so this is one of those slow news periods.

Recently, I received a copy of Bill Konkolesky's book Experiencers which I am suppose to write a review for. One of the state directors of MUFON pointed me to JAR Mag's website (JAR is an acronym for Journal of Abduction-Encounter Research) because he noticed they were looking for someone to help them with a re-design, as well as maintain the page. This was a volunteer opportunity and since at the time I was looking for another addition to my portfolio, I shot them an email. This was 4 or 5 months ago now, and I have still not had the time to work on a re-design (so don't go thinking the current incarnation is my doing!), though recently I have had a chance to begin working on some mockups.

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Betty and Barney Hill: Recordings

A cool link came through my Google Alerts today -- an old case, but a classic: The Betty and Barney Hill Abduction.

I remember watching the made-for-tv movie of this, when I was very little. It was one of my first introductions into UFOs.

These are the actual hypnosis-session recordings. The audio is obviously old and deteriorated, so it's a little hard to hear, but worth it if you're interested.

Here's a link to the playlist:

Betty and Barney Hill Hypnosis Recordings

*And yeah, it's a slow news day.

MUFON's Abduction Monitoring Project

Here's a gem of an article I found on MUFON's investigation into abduction claims:

A few years ago MUFON tried to catch ETs abducting humans. They selected a group of documented alien abductees and they began putting specially designed sensing units in each abductees’ home. MUFON had the abductee fill out forms each day on their recollection of the night before i.e., whether they thought something happened or not. The idea was simple and smart. You collate the data from the “tamper proof” sensors with the days that the abductee felt something happened. If the sensor picked up anomalies you would have independent verification something strange happened that same night.

Read more at the source

The Hill UFO & Abduction

Excellent primer for those new to the world of UFOs and Abduction:

Abducted by Aliens:

Many early researchers into the mystery of UFOs had distinctive lines of belief. It is in the realm of possibility that someone could see and report a UFO, but it is impossible that the alien beings flying the UFO would interact with humans, and certainly not take them against their will. This line of distinction would forever disappear because of one flagship case of alien abduction, the Betty and Barney Hill encounter. Their journey into the unknown began in New Hampshire in September, 1961, and would forever change the course of Ufology.

Read the rest here: UFO World News

Fallow Romanek

Great post by international MUFON director, James Carrion

Are you fallowing me?

Stan Romanek recently took his story to the air waves on the Angela Joiner report to explain why the word fallow always seem to be showing up in documents related to his alleged claims of alien abduction and government conspiracy. Blogger Chuck Zukowski recently posted an article supporting Stan's claims that the word "fallow" was a commonly misspelled word and was not evidence of any impropriety in his case.

Read more at the source

Scotland’s Biggest UFO Incident to be a Film

Scotland’s biggest UFO incident is being made into a film, depicting the story of two men who claim they were abducted from their car on the A70 road in West Lothian in 1992.

Excerpt:

Scotland has always been a hotspot for UFO and alien-based activity and now London-based DRB Entertainment is hoping to re-tell the story of Garry Wood and Colin Wright, who claim they were abducted while driving to the village of Tarbrax. Their intended 30 minute journey took an unexpected turn when a disc shaped object hovered above the road in front of them as they drove along the quiet road at 8pm...Read more (with video)

Source