On alien abduction, grays, and consciousness

[PIT2]

Before I ever found out what sleep paralysis was I once confessed this story to close friends when we were on a long drive to another state and the subject of dreams and nighmares came up.

As is mentioned in the article on the first page, sleep paralysis cannot be the explanation for all abduction accounts (remember the cases where the person is completely awake doing whatever awake people are doing, or the multiple witness cases). The article also states that there are bedroom abduction cases, which do not have any symptoms of sleep paralysis:

Nighttime abduction cases often involve other witnesses, temporary disappearances of the abductee, specific types of physical marks, scars or bruises - even broken bones - which appeared during the night, and occasional situations in which the abductee awakens wearing a stranger's nightclothes. In many consciously recalled nocturnal abductions, none of the symptoms of sleep paralysis are recalled.

http://www.intrudersfoundation.org/junk_science_paralysis.html

It would be interesting to see if sleep paralysis sufferers can develop PTSD from it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

As is mentioned in the article on the first page, sleep paralysis cannot be the explanation for all abduction accounts (remember the cases where the person is completely awake doing whatever awake people are doing, or the multiple witness cases).

I agree it doesn't necessarily explain all cases, but don't forget the whole first part of my experience which was some kind of non-paralyzed hallucination of getting up and walking down to the McDonalds. I could go to Budd Hoskins and tell him my story and claim the whole thing couldn't have been sleep paralysis because of that first part, and that he should know alien abductors also sometimes look like normal humans.

I won't, though, because I don't believe that's the case. I had sleep paralysis three other times, and know it happens in degrees. Two of the other times I was merely paralyzed in my room in my bed, able to see but not move. The only distress was about not being able to move no matter how hard I tried. The third time there was someone pacing back and forth by the bed just out of my range of vision, bouncing a basketball.

All this adds up to random neurotransmitter tricks and glitches.

It would be interesting to see if sleep paralysis sufferers can develop PTSD from it.

You should read The Professor And The Madman, the true story about the man who supervised the first edition of the OED, and his main contributor, a murderer locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane. The latter seems to have had sleep paralysis nearly every night during which he was physically used by the abductors. In fact, the "murder" he comitted was the result of coming out of one of these paralysis attacks, picking up a pistol and charging out to kill the man who'd just molested him. The man he ended up shooting turned out to be an innocent man walking by on his way to work just before sunrise. So, I'd say it can seem very real and disturbing and drive a person crazy, yes, if it happens chronically.

 

[PIT2]

I agree it doesn't necessarily explain all cases, but don't forget the whole first part of my experience which was some kind of non-paralyzed hallucination of getting up and walking down to the McDonalds. I could go to Budd Hoskins and tell him my story and claim the whole thing couldn't have been sleep paralysis because of that first part, and that he should know alien abductors also sometimes look like normal humans.

Ur experience still happened in ur bed while asleep/paralysed, and it simply doesn't match abduction accounts. I am not saying that its impossible that abductions are completely hallucinatory(after all its possible that our entire lifes are), but there is no cleatcut evidence that suggests this is the case. To compare ur experience with alien abductions, just imagine that people all over the world started to have similar experiences of walking to the macdonalds and then waking up on top of another guy. Now add some cases where multiple people observe this, many more cases where this happens to people who are fully awake, some where the person actually goes physically missing for awhile, and then u can see how it isn't quite the same.

All this adds up to random neurotransmitter tricks and glitches.

So does every other experience one might say.

You should read The Professor And The Madman, the true story about the man who supervised the first edition of the OED, and his main contributor, a murderer locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane. The latter seems to have had sleep paralysis nearly every night during which he was physically used by the abductors. In fact, the "murder" he comitted was the result of coming out of one of these paralysis attacks, picking up a pistol and charging out to kill the man who'd just molested him. The man he ended up shooting turned out to be an innocent man walking by on his way to work just before sunrise. So, I'd say it can seem very real and disturbing and drive a person crazy, yes, if it happens chronically.

There are also madmen that fight with satan. All this does not evaporate the fact that abductees have been psychologically tested and found not to be mad at all. In other words, there is little more reason to suspect that above story applies to abductees than there is suspect it applies to anyone else. That the events described by abductees are unusual, is not exactly a proper reason to conclude that the abductees hallucinated.

If these things really are delusions, then (similarly to what happens when schizo's experience them) there should be plenty cases where multiple people are present, and of which only the delusional person sees the delusion, making it obvious to all others present that this person is seeing something that is not there. I have read one such story about a woman in a car who was being interviewed by a ufologist, when suddenly she saw an entirely different environment around her and an alien coming towards her. The ufologist didnt see anything, and I've read other ufologists say that this wasnt a real abductee.

 

[SGT]

It doesn't matter what some other persons believe to be true or not, the cases exist and have been documented

(all radpiths explanations have been debunked btw)

There are documents that confirm the cases and others that show they are not true. I have already provided evidence against the Rendelshan case. Here is a debunking of the Travis Walton case. As I said, you are free to dismiss the negative evidence and believe in the ones that confirm your beliefs.
In the hypothetical case you proposed of several witnesses saying they saw a red car, suppose several other people saying there was no red car in that place. We can say that one group or another is lying. Since the existence of red cars does not infringe any known law of Nature, I would need further investigations to decide where is the truth. In the case of UFOs several known laws are broken so I will ask for stronger evidence than some witnessing.

 

[SGT]

...
There are also madmen that fight with satan. All this does not evaporate the fact that abductees have been psychologically tested and found not to be mad at all.
...

I am no psychiatrist and even if I were, I could not judge on the sanity of a person by his writings in a board, but I don't think zoobyshoe is mad either. But he had an experience that is indistinguishable of an abduction.

 

[PIT2]

There are documents that confirm the cases and others that show they are not true. I have already provided evidence against the Rendelshan case. Here is a debunking of the Travis Walton case. As I said, you are free to dismiss the negative evidence and believe in the ones that confirm your beliefs.

Believe whatever u wish to believe. However, remember to be skeptical of both sides, it can be an enlightening experience There used to be people that dismissed the existence of meteors u know.

In the hypothetical case you proposed of several witnesses saying they saw a red car, suppose several other people saying there was no red car in that place. We can say that one group or another is lying. Since the existence of red cars does not infringe any known law of Nature, I would need further investigations to decide where is the truth. In the case of UFOs several known laws are broken so I will ask for stronger evidence than some witnessing.

When everyone sees a red car, the red car most likely exists.
Its as simple as that.

 

[PIT2]

but I don't think zoobyshoe is mad either. But he had an experience that is indistinguishable of an abduction.

Similarly, i cannot judge about ur sanity either from what uve written. Though claiming that zoobyshoes experience is indistinguishable of an alien abduction, fits right up there in the category of claiming macdonalds employees are fighterpilots.

 

[SGT]

Believe whatever u wish to believe. However, remember to be skeptical of both sides, it can be an enlightening experience There used to be people that dismissed the existence of meteors u know.

And there are people that dismiss the existence of Santa Claus.

When everyone sees a red car, the red car most likely exists.
Its as simple as that.

Not everyone sees UFOs. And I sent you examples of refutations of two main UFO experiences. Have you read them?

 

[SGT]

Similarly, i cannot judge about ur sanity either from what uve written. Though claiming that zoobyshoes experience is indistinguishable of an alien abduction, fits right up there in the category of claiming macdonalds employees are fighterpilots.

zoobyshoe said that his experience is undistinguishable from an alien abduction. Are you saying that he is a lier?

 

[PIT2]

zoobyshoe said that his experience is undistinguishable from an alien abduction. Are you saying that he is a lier?

Care to quote him?

 

[PIT2]

Not everyone sees UFOs. And I sent you examples of refutations of two main UFO experiences. Have you read them?

Yubz, however... most of the debunking itself has already been debunked. Thats what i meant when i said that one should be skeptical of both sides: do not believe everything that is written on sites that claim to offer mundane explanations, just as u shouldn't believe everything that is written on sites with outlandish explanations.

 

[PIT2]

Heres an image of the Allagash abduction tale:

http://img313.imageshack.us/img313/6373/allagashabduction8ks.jpg

Zooby mentioned it on the second page and said they may have touched a poisonous plant that caused them to black out.

 

[SGT]

Yubz, however... most of the debunking itself has already been debunked. Thats what i meant when i said that one should be skeptical of both sides: do not believe everything that is written on sites that claim to offer mundane explanations, just as u shouldn't believe everything that is written on sites with outlandish explanations.

Can you provide me with a debunking of the debunkings I posted?

 

[SGT]

Care to quote him?

Here it goes:

I was abducted in broad daylight from a McDonalds.

This was in Minnesota about 25 years ago. I got up from a nap one day and walked down to a McDonalds where I always went because all my friends hung out there. As I was standing in line to get my coffee I suddenly fell backwards for no apparent reason right onto the guy who was standing behind me. A second later I was lying on my back, back in my bed at home. But I was lying on top of the guy I had fallen onto at the MCDonalds. He had my arms pinned and he was sniggering in my ear. I was pretty much paralyzed. There was someone else in the room, too. This guy paced back and forth slowly, not looking at me or the other guy, seeming to be waiting for something to happen. He looked depressed. The guy holding me down kept sniggering in my ear and seemed to be enjoying the fact I was paralyzed. I was completely terrified, to say the least, and couldn't even struggle.

This went on only a short time, though, maybe a quarter minute at most, and then they both suddenly evaporated. I was there alone lying on my bed. I could move now, but was completely upset and in shock about what had just happened. It had all been completely vivid in all detail: I could see, hear and feel them perfectly clearly while it was going on.

I didn't learn about the phenomenon of sleep paralysis until quite a few years later, and used to just think of the incident as some kind of nightmare. Anyway, I know why "abductees" are loathe to assume they are any kind of hallucination: they seem too vivid. We have the false preconception that hallucinations are supposed to be unrealistic somehow, have some dreamlike insubstantiality that gives them away as hallucinations, but they don't. What was especially peculiar was the "set up": the part where I hallucinated walking all the way to the McDonald's when I was actually still at home in bed. I suppose I really wanted to go down there but got caught in some "interzone" where my neurotransmitters hadn't all shifted back into waking mode allowing me to hallucinate I was doing what I wanted to do.

Had it been two grey alien looking things instead of two humans, I'm sure I'd have been seriously considering that I'd been abducted by space aliens.

 

[PIT2]

Here it goes:

U forgot the part where he says that his experience is undistinguishable from an alien abduction.

 

[SGT]

U forgot the part where he says that his experience is undistinguishable from an alien abduction.

Repeating:

...
Anyway, I know why "abductees" are loathe to assume they are any kind of hallucination: they seem too vivid. We have the false preconception that hallucinations are supposed to be unrealistic somehow, have some dreamlike insubstantiality that gives them away as hallucinations, but they don't.
...

Undistinguishable in the sense that it is so vivid that you don't believe it to be an hallucination.
As I said before, I have no reason to think zoobie is lying. The same is not true with several supposed abductees, like Travis Walton.

 

[PIT2]

Can you provide me with a debunking of the debunkings I posted?

Check out this page for example:
http://www.rendlesham-incident.co.uk/explanations.htm

More info on Rendlesham and Travis Walton can be found through google

 

[PIT2]

Repeating:

Undistinguishable in the sense that it is so vivid that you don't believe it to be an hallucination.
As I said before, I have no reason to think zoobie is lying. The same is not true with several supposed abductees, like Travis Walton.

Ur failure to quote zooby leaves only one conclusion: that zooby never said his experience was indistinguishable from an alien abduction.

If u want to claim otherwise and not sound like a liar, please provide the quote.

 

[SGT]

Ur failure to quote zooby leaves only one conclusion: that zooby never said his experience was indistinguishable from an alien abduction.

If u want to claim otherwise and not sound like a liar, please provide the quote.

Now you are calling me a liar? Here is another quote from zoobie:

I agree it doesn't necessarily explain all cases, but don't forget the whole first part of my experience which was some kind of non-paralyzed hallucination of getting up and walking down to the McDonalds. I could go to Budd Hoskins and tell him my story and claim the whole thing couldn't have been sleep paralysis because of that first part, and that he should know alien abductors also sometimes look like normal humans.

I won't, though, because I don't believe that's the case. I had sleep paralysis three other times, and know it happens in degrees. Two of the other times I was merely paralyzed in my room in my bed, able to see but not move. The only distress was about not being able to move no matter how hard I tried. The third time there was someone pacing back and forth by the bed just out of my range of vision, bouncing a basketball.

You are free to believe in any nonsense you want to, but let's keep the discussion without personal offenses or I will report you to the moderator.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No alien warfare please.

 

[PIT2]

Now you are calling me a liar? Here is another quote from zoobie:

Did u just call me and Ivanseeking a liar?
Lol just kidding, enough of the liar nonsense. I never called u, zooby, or anyone else here a liar, although i doubt that many humans exist that have never told a lie. Perhaps aliens are different.

 

[Chronos]

If aliens ever had a good reason to abduct anyone, it would have been me.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That's the really funny part Chronos, they did! I have the pictures.

 

[PIT2]

Here is a paper on the mental health of abductees:

Clinical Discrepancies Between Expected and Observed Data in Patients Reporting UFO Abductions: Implications For Treatment

...Her findings demonstrate a uniform lack of the significant psychopathology which would be necessary to account for these experiences if abduction experiences do represent the psychotic or delusional states predicted by current theory. When the examiner was informed of the true reason for the selection of the subjects for this evaluation (i.e., their shared belief that they had been exposed to alien abductions), she wrote an addendum to the original report re- examining the findings of the testing in the light of the new data. In it she states: "The first and most critical question is whether our subjects' reported experiences could be accounted for strictly on the basis of psychopathy, i.e., mental disorder. The answer is a firm no. In broad terms, if the reported abductions were confabulated fantasy productions, based on what we know about psychological disorders, they could only have come from pathological liars, paranoid schizophrenics, and severely disturbed and extraordinarily rare hysteroid characters subject to fugue states and/or multiple personality shifts... It is important to note that not one of the subjects, based on test data, falls into any of these categories. Therefore, while testing can do nothing to prove the veracity of the UFO abduction reports, one can conclude that the test findings are not inconsistent with the possibility that reported UFO abductions have, in fact, occurred. In other words, there is no apparent psychological explanation for their reports."

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS:
Although it has long been the "common wisdom" of both the professional and lay communities that anyone claiming to be the victim of abduction by UFO occupants must be seriously disturbed, thoroughly deluded or a liar, careful examination of both the reports and their reports calls this assumption into question. Clinical and psychometric investigation of abductees reveals four areas of discrepancy between the expected data and the observable phenomena and suggests further investigation.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc7.htm

Id say this blows a wide hole in the theory that abductions are delusions.

 

[SGT]

Here is a paper on the mental health of abductees:



Id say this blows a wide hole in the theory that abductions are delusions.

No, it does not! As zoobieshoe told, he had a sleep paralysis experience although he seems to be mentally sane. I don't know his age, but I assume that when he had this experience he was very young, so his subconscious mind located the experience in a McDonalds.
It is difficult to generalize, but it seems that many of the supposed abductees are believers in UFOs, like Travis Walton or had recently seen SciFi movies, like the Hills. So, if they had delusions, their experiences could naturally been of an alien contact.
The Walton case is probably better explained by fraud then by delusion and it has been suggested that the same could be true of the Hills.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Walton case is probably better explained by fraud

I would think since there were four alleged witnesses who I believe all ultimately passed a lie detector test; less one person whose results were unclear. There was never any legal evidence sufficient to file charges against those involved.

Correction:

We loaded the chainsaws and gas and oil cans into the back of the '65 International. After arranging the gas cans so they would not tip over and leak on the bumps, Mike slammed the tailgate tightly. The decrepit pickup groaned on its tired old suspension as everyone piled in. There was Dwayne by the left rear door, Jown and Steve in the middle, and Allen by the right rear door. In the front, I sat by the door, riding shotgun. Ken sat in the middle, and of course Mike was driving. The seven of us usually sat in the same place every day. Nonsmokers in front, smokers in back.

http://www.travis-walton.com/ordinary.html

 

[SGT]

I would think since there were four alleged witnesses who I believe all ultimately passed a lie detector test; less one person whose results were unclear. There was never any legal evidence sufficient to file charges against those involved.

Correction:

http://www.travis-walton.com/ordinary.html

From the site I provided:

Some of the most damning evidence that the entire case was a hoax surrounds the various polygraph examinations and the behavior of the principles involved, Duane and Travis Walton, and Mike Rogers. APRO announced on February 7, 1976, that both Travis and Duane had passed an exam given by George Pfeiffer, who worked for Tom Ezell and Associates. But that test was flawed in a number of respects: Pfeiffer allowed Walton to dictate a number of the questions he asked. While it is not uncommon for polygraphers to allow the test subjects and/or sponsors to outline the general area to be probed, allowing the subject to dictate specific questions violates the basic principles of polygraphy and should invalidate the test results. Also, Pfeiffer was relatively inexperienced, having been practicing only two years. This inexperience expressed itself when he judged Walton's "No" answer to the question "Before November 5, 1975, were you a UFO buff?" to be truthful. Walton's answer directly contradicted information provided by both his mother and brother Duane and by Walton himself during an earlier psychological examination.

Later in March of 1976, when Pfeiffer's employer Tom Ezell had reviewed the charts, he concluded that it was impossible to determine if Walton and Duane were answering the test questions truthfully. Ezell stated in a letter to Phil Klass: "Upon review of this examination, I find that to me it is not acceptable. In the first place I would not be a party to an examination in which the subject dictated the questions to be asked ... Because of the dictation of the questions to be asked, this test should be invalidated. Also, upon examining the resultant charts, I find that I cannot give an opinion one way or another" whether the subjects had been truthful or not. Yet this is the examination to which Walton refers when he states he has passed a lie detector test.

But the real "bombshell," as Klass describes it in his book, was the fact that Walton had failed an earlier polygraph examination miserably and this information had been suppressed by APRO, which had been proclaiming the Walton case "one of the most important and intriguing in the history of the UFO phenomena." This test was administered by John McCarthy, who with twenty years of experience was one of the most respected examiners in the state of Arizona. His conclusion: "Gross deception." Proponents of the Walton case never mention this examination.

Anyway, polygraphs are not reliable instruments.

 

[PIT2]

No, it does not! As zoobieshoe told, he had a sleep paralysis experience although he seems to be mentally sane.

U said it urself, he had a sleep paralysis experience, not an abduction experience.
As i pointed out on the first page, both are not and cannot be the same.

It is difficult to generalize, but it seems that many of the supposed abductees are believers in UFOs, like Travis Walton or had recently seen SciFi movies, like the Hills.

A quote from the earlier paper:

In general, the appearance and modus operandi of the aliens, their effect and procedures, their tools and interests, their crafts and physical features all tally from report to report with a high rate of concordance. (8,9,10) This intriguing fact seems impervious to the socio-economic, educational, national, or cultural background of the abductee. Similarly, whether the individual has had previous contact with the literature of abduction seems to make little difference in this vein since the reports of individuals who can be shown to have had no exposure to abduction literature also contains these common features. Skilled practitioners and investigators report in these cases that they are convinced that each of these subjects was being wholly truthful in his/her report.

The Walton case is probably better explained by fraud then by delusion and it has been suggested that the same could be true of the Hills.

No fraud has been proven in either case, and there probably wasnt any.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

From the site I provided:

Anyway, polygraphs are not reliable instruments.

Well, I have two thoughts on this point. First, I'm not about to start defending abductee stories; note that I never have. But the facts are the facts and I have always found this story to be one of the most compelling around. However, when I listen to Travis Walton tell his story, I am not impressed. Now it is easy to imagine that after all of these years the drama is more like a rehearsed story than a life experience, but when listening to him I could just as easily believe he is making it all up.

Next, I find most second hand, after the fact, upon later review stuff to be mostly nonsense. There is no end to this no matter how compelling the evidence. If the cops could have busted these guys for perpetuating a hoax, which I'm sure that they did since they didn't believe the story, you can be sure that they would have. I would bet that they wanted to nail these guys with a passion but couldn't. In either case, it has never been proven as hoax.

 

[ubavontuba]

Forum,

Let's turn this back to my original considerations.

The reason why I'm particularly interested in sleepwalking in this regard is because I've had some interesting experiences myself.

I don't generally sleepwalk, but I do occasionally when my brain is unusually stressed (like when I'm sick or when I'm under the influence of intoxicating substances).

Once, when I had a fairly serious case of viral encephalitis, I had the alien abduction dream. In my case, the "aliens" were two very serious looking gray men, dressed in rumpled gray shirts, rumpled gray trousers and they were both wearing dark sunglasses. To me they seemed rather tall, but I was only 10 at the time, so every adult seemed tall. They had "military style" short gray hair (essentially they were bald). Note: At this time, close cropped hair was very rare. You almost had to be a new military recruit to have it.

A special note of interest: This happened in the summer of 1970, many years before I can recall hearing a description of the "Grays." In fact, I still remember the tingling in my spine when I first heard abduction stories with similar "alien" descriptions.

My family was camping when this event took place, so there were lots of witnesses. We were asleep in our tent and I saw them coming through the tent to get me. It's not so much like they were coming through the walls of the tent literally though, more like the walls had no meaning to them. They appeared to be disembarking from a vessel or vehicle of some sort too (I don't remember any details of it).

They tried to grab me and I started hollering and screaming and fighting. When I came to, my father was holding me and trying to calm me down. I was wildly swinging a pillow around, with which I had apparently been trying to hit "them." To say the least, I slept the rest of the night with the flashlight on.

I feel that had this happened without witnesses, that I would feel very strongly that I'd been quite literally in a fight with real aliens that were trying to abduct me. If my father hadn't grabbed me, who knows how far the dream may have progressed (and the damage).

So, keeping in mind that this happened several years before the popularization of "alien abductions," you can probably pretty much surmise that I've never believed the stories. However, I can quite empathize with the "abductees" and believe they're telling the truth when they state it really happened (the truth being relative to them).

I do believe that my "aliens" may have been influenced by "bad guy" characters from black & white television shows, particularly creepy shows like "The Twilight Zone." I also suspect that this might be why so many of the early versions of the aliens described by others are so similar (television being such a strong cultural influence).

It took me some time to fully recover from my illness. I heard weird droning sounds off and on for weeks afterwards. I still remember calling out for help during one particularly intense episode. My Dad and a few other family members rushed into my bedroom and were quite adamant that they didn't hear any noises (maybe they were alien conspirators! LOL).

To this day, merely thinking about it makes me nervous.