3 The Truth Is Out There

Paranormal Beliefs and Experiences

People have seen strange objects in the sky seemingly for as long as we have had records. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel reported the sighting of a “whirlwind from the north.” Apparently based on a passage in a book by Washington Irving, UFO books and websites claim that Christopher Columbus reported a “light glimmering at a great distance” in his ship’s log two days before first landing in the New World.1 In the 1800s the United States experienced a rash of sightings of flying, cigar-shaped objects similar to dirigibles, which sometimes disgorged humanlike pilots.2 Since the late 1800s, mysterious “ghost lights” have been sighted dancing across the Chihuahuan Desert in Marfa, Texas. During World War II some Allied pilots reported sightings of small disks or globes of light that followed their planes, which were ultimately nicknamed “foo fighters.”3

What has changed quite a bit over time is the interpretation of such objects. Ezekiel believed his whirlwind was a sign from God. The airships of the late 1800s were widely assumed to be the work of “secret inventors.” The Marfa lights were dismissed as the lanterns of lost prospectors wandering the desert, or cattle rustlers absconding with their booty at night. The U.S. military thought the foo fighters were weapons of the Japanese or Germans. As technology changes, so do our mysterious aerial objects, always staying one step ahead of us. Nowadays some UFO enthusiasts assume Ezekiel’s experience is evidence that extraterrestrials were visiting Earth in biblical times; therefore Ezekiel’s interpretation is assumed to be the wrong one.4

The widespread interpretation of mysterious objects in the sky as extraterrestrial in origin is often traced to the June 24, 1947, sighting by Kenneth Arnold, a fire-equipment salesman. An experienced civilian pilot, Arnold was flying his private plane from Chehalis to Yakima, Washington, when he took a brief detour over Mount Rainier to search for the wreckage of a recently crashed plane. Arnold was startled by a bright flash while making a turn high over the town of Mineral. He spotted nine peculiar craft approximately one hundred miles away, soaring at a bearing that would bring them in front of his plane. At first Arnold thought the objects were jets until they drew closer; he could see wings but no tails. One of the objects was almost crescent-shaped, with a small dome midway between the wingtips. The others were flat “like a pie pan,” with a reflective surface.5 The craft wove around the mountaintops allowing Arnold to clock their speed at roughly sixteen hundred miles per hour, nearly three times faster than conventional aircraft of the 1940s.

Recounting the sighting to reporters, Arnold described the objects’ flight as “like saucers skipped over water.” In the flurry of news coverage that followed, writers began using terms such as “flying disks” or “flying saucers” to describe the objects, although the exact provenance of the term is unclear. Clearer was the new interpretation of strange flying objects. Arnold’s report, if true, was of intelligently controlled objects clearly beyond the capabilities of the time, so the possibility that such “flying saucers” were of extraterrestrial origin became firmly cemented in popular culture.6 In later years, the preferred term for mysterious objects of assumed extraterrestrial origin became “UFO”—unidentified flying object.7

Of course, the term “UFO” simply refers to an object seen in the sky that has not yet been conclusively identified. The object need not be extraterrestrial. However, many Americans assume that aliens have visited our world. As of 2015, nearly one-fifth of Americans (18%) agreed or strongly agreed that “aliens have come to Earth in modern times.” Nearly another 40% remain uncertain on the matter (see figure 3.1).

For some, the belief in extraterrestrials extends to our very origins as a species, much to the dismay of mainstream archeologists. Proponents of the so-called ancient astronauts thesis contend that aliens created mankind or at least accelerated human development via the granting of wisdom and technology. This idea dates back, in some form or another, to the late-nineteenth-century works of the Russian mystic/theosophist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, but the Swiss author Erich von Däniken is responsible for its most influential iteration, in books such as Chariots of the Gods (1968), In Search of Ancient Gods (1973), Miracles of the Gods (1974), and many others.8 His books were so popular that Däniken became a minor celebrity. His theories were the subject of countless television documentaries and the inspiration behind his own Swedish theme park, Mystery Park (unfortunately, it folded in 2006). Zecharia Sitchin, who also believes that extraterrestrials played a role in human history, Däniken, and others marshal an assortment of archaeological evidence to support the theory of ancient astronauts.9

Perhaps the most common claim among ancient astronaut enthusiasts is that impressive feats of ancient engineering—the pyramids of Egypt, the statues on Easter Island, the great temples of South America—were simply beyond the capacity of their associated societies. Däniken speculates openly about the builders of the great monuments of Egypt:

How on Earth did the Ancient Egyptians build these edifices without twentieth-century technology? . . . [H]ow were the statues of Memnon near Thebes that weighed 600 tons transported, or the stone blocks of the terrace at Baalbek, some of which are over 60 feet long and weigh 2,000 tons? And now the sixty-four thousand dollar question: Who nowadays can still accept the “serious” archaeological explanation that these stone blocks were moved up inclined planes using wooden rollers? . . . I get no answers to questions like that. So could it be true that extraterrestrial space travelers helped with their highly developed technology?10

Däniken uses this rhetorical technique throughout his work. He outlines the incredible effort that would have been required of ancient peoples to construct a particular monument, raises concerns about their ability to do so, and finally speculates that it all would have been much easier with help from the stars. Since the entire exercise is framed in the form of questions, it allows Däniken to make astonishing allegations with the benefit of distance; he is not making unreasonable claims, simply asking questions. The ancient astronaut literature leaves the reader with the distinct impression that ancient peoples could not accomplish much on their own.

The books of Däniken and others provide a complete, alternative reading of the historical record and the meanings of religious doctrine, myth, and legend. God figures in elaborate headdresses depicted in ancient artwork become literal astronauts in their space helmets.11 References to strange celestial objects or godlike figures in holy texts are reinterpreted as historical accounts of visitations by extraterrestrials. Landscape features such as the admittedly mysterious Nazca Lines of Peru, a collection of lines scraped into the soil that reveal themselves to be enormous representations of birds, monkeys, and other figures when viewed from a great height, are frequently mentioned by ancient astronaut theorists. Archaeologists disagree as to whether the Peruvian artists meant this amazing achievement in landscape art to function as an irrigation system, an astronomical calendar, or, just maybe, simply as art. To ancient astronaut proponents the purpose is obvious—the lines are runways for ancient spacecraft, or perhaps artwork meant to be pleasing to extraterrestrials hovering high above Earth. Of course, such claims have been the focus of intense criticism,12 but they have maintained a foothold in paranormal subcultures. These ideas are even relatively prevalent among college students taking archeology classes, with over one-third believing in ancient aliens,13 and have certainly captured the attention of the American public, with over one-fifth believing that “aliens visited Earth in our ancient past” (see figure 3.2).

Further confusing popular understanding of mankind’s history is a persistent belief in ancient, advanced civilizations such as Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu.14 Plato’s dialogues provide the first reference to Atlantis, a powerful nation that supposedly sank under the waves during a natural disaster. Ever since, those with an interest in Atlantis have fretted over whether Plato’s reference is meant as a parable on hubris (even the most powerful can fall to forces beyond their control), or a recounting of historical fact. Ignatius Donnelly took up the case in his 1882 work Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, in which he forcefully argued that archeological data, legends, and historical records point to a real Atlantis.15 As the legend passed through the hands of Helena P. Blavatsky, Lewis Spence, Edgar Cayce, and others, the nature of Atlantis changed. What Plato described as a society advanced for its time was transformed into an amazing civilization far beyond current understanding and with ties to extraterrestrials. Its reported destruction by natural disaster morphed into death by technological malfeasance.16

While we cannot assess the extent to which Americans believe in alien intervention in early history specifically, we do know how they feel about Atlantis. Over 60% of Americans agree or strongly agree that ancient advanced civilizations like Atlantis once existed (see figure 3.3).

Aren’t They Just Nuts?

Telling someone that you are writing a book on such subjects as UFOs, ancient astronauts, and astrology solicits some very interesting, often colorful remarks. When this project first began, one of the authors was telling his family doctor about it during a routine medical appointment. The doctor listened patiently to the description of the project, and his first reaction was: “Why study these people? Aren’t they just nuts?” Even though a large number of people in the United States believe in UFOs and other paranormal phenomena, the popular stereotype is that those who lend credence to such topics are very strange indeed, or “just nuts.” But is this true?

A big problem in answering such questions had been a lack of good information on the believers themselves. A number of researchers have explored the social correlates of the paranormal, but failed to produce consistent findings. For example, a number of scholars found that people with higher education levels and younger people were more prone to report paranormal experiences.17 Yet other studies failed to find such relationships.18

Data problems plagued the field for many years and many reasons. Some surveys that asked Americans about their paranormal beliefs and experiences were geographically limited, while others were limited to subsections of the population. Historically, much of the available information on paranormal beliefs was collected from college students, as getting captive audiences in classes to fill out surveys is quick and cost effective.19

In 2005 we launched what, at the time, was the most comprehensive panel of questions on paranormal beliefs, practices, and experiences in a national probability sample: the Baylor Religion Survey.20 That sample, with its demographic, paranormal, religious, and lifestyle questions, allowed us to develop a sense of average, general paranormal believers in America. In 2014 and 2015 we collected new data to update many of these measures, allowing us to reexamine the relationships we documented previously.21

On the Margins

One of the most consistent stereotypes about the supernatural is that such beliefs are the realm of those who live on society’s margins—the poor and powerless. Though they are more reserved in their terminology, some influential social theorists argued that those who held supernatural beliefs were, indeed, nuts. Karl Marx made one of the most famous statements in this regard. He argued that, in so many words, the rich and powerful are able to get what they need out of this world by conventional means, and the world is set up to reward them. Religious beliefs perform the vital social function of providing comfort to the less powerful, and those who are currently suffering. Without the belief that they would be compensated for current suffering with magnificent rewards in the afterlife, the working class would revolt and undermine the capitalist system. As such, per Marx, belief in an unseen world is merely a coping mechanism to deal with life on the margins of society, the “sigh of the oppressed creature.”22

In a similar vein, many theorists wonder if the desire to experience the supernatural, whether in the organized form of religion or via the paranormal, is simply a reaction to uncertainty. Those with a higher level of social achievement such as a good education, a high-paying, “respectable” occupation, and a stable family life are apt to feel more in control of their lives.23 The decisions they have made and the actions they have taken have produced highly valued achievements. As a result, they have greater confidence in their own abilities to exert influence over circumstances.24 Those who have fewer socioeconomic resources, or who are marginalized from society, are more apt to feel as if they have lost control over their very futures. They seem to be at the mercy of unseen forces rather than in control of them because they are burdened by heavy hardships. Social scientists call the sense that one controls one’s own fate an internal locus of control. Women, the poor, those with low levels of education, and racial/ethnic minorities have been found to have less perceived control over their lives.25

Humans generally do not like uncertainty and try to reduce it. This is a fundamental assumption about human action that underpins much social science research in sociology and economics.26 We humans collect information and attempt to make the best decisions about our futures from our own current perspective. We try to find ways to take control of our lives. Some religion scholars believe that those who lack the ability to change their circumstances themselves may ultimately seek divine assistance in the task. In other words, perhaps we seek the supernatural’s help when we cannot help ourselves.27 Marx’s work and the concept of a locus of control led to a widespread belief among early sociologists that all forms of religious and paranormal beliefs and experiences would be most prevalent in the poor and oppressed. Life, however, is rarely as simple as theorists would like it to be.

There are many reasons why religious beliefs should appeal to both rich and poor, those with great power and those without it. Religion’s primary “products” provide answers to the big questions in life (such as whether our existence has a purpose) and usually offer a means by which to achieve life after death. These are things that cannot be bought with money or earned with a higher social status, so they should hypothetically be equally attractive to rich and poor alike, the mainstream and the marginalized. Indeed, we find that both rich and poor tend to be religious in some form in the United States. People of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to be involved in organized religious activities such as attending services at a temple, mosque, or other house of worship regularly. People of lower socioeconomic status attend religious service less, but are more likely to believe strongly in supernatural precepts, engage in private acts of piety such as personal prayer, and have intensive, sensory religious experiences.28 Still others have an entirely personal or idiosyncratic religiosity that is more focused on privatized spirituality or other contacts with the supernatural, an expression which is contingent on both social class and ethnicity.29 In sum, what varies more than attraction to religion is how different socioeconomic groups manifest their religiosity.

In addition to promises of eternal salvation, religious congregations offer many rewards that can be obtained on Earth, such as leadership positions and access to influential financial and personal networks. The powerful (i.e., those from higher socioeconomic groups) tend to monopolize these material yet religious rewards just as they do in many other aspects of life. In the United States, religious groups are strictly voluntary associations; therefore, they must depend upon the resources, both monetary and human, of their members. People who are powerful in the local community are likely to be the powerful members within conventional religious groups as well.

So what does this have to do with paranormal beliefs, practices, and experiences? Like most people, the socially marginal are seeking rewards from religion, but they are not reaping those direct, concrete rewards from religious life that have been usurped by the more powerful members. The failure to secure empirical rewards may lead to disappointment, alienation, and estrangement from conventional society. Such individuals may reject the beliefs of the mainstream without giving up on the desire for some sort of relationship with the supernatural realm. This can lead to experimentation with alternative beliefs or experiences.

Some of the disaffected are able to fulfill their desires within a religious framework. They become more open to intense and unconventional religious experiences not typically associated with upper- and middle-class religious practices. For instance, using BRS data, there is a significant decrease in the odds of claiming a variety of intensive, sensory religious experiences for each increase on a scale of income, even after controlling for sociodemographics, religious tradition, frequency of religious service attendance, frequency of prayer, and biblical literalism. This is particularly the case for claiming miraculous physical healing, speaking in tongues, and having religious visions.30 Religious sects, which tend toward more charismatic experiences, draw more heavily from those of lower socioeconomic status.31

Those with a weaker connection to religious beliefs or who have grown disenchanted with conventional religion experiences may experiment with more esoteric beliefs such as psychic phenomena, astrology, or UFOs.32 Finding an intense or unique supernatural experience that the upper classes do not share can be empowering to socially marginal people.33 Unique beliefs or experiences can make one feel unique, worthy, and valuable. To the extent that such a belief is an organized activity, it can even confer a certain social status among fellow seekers. In some cases alternative beliefs give the marginalized a sense of control over their lives that they cannot find elsewhere. All of this suggests that groups with lesser power, however defined, may experiment more with the paranormal.

One way to determine if there is indeed greater paranormal belief among the marginalized is to examine patterns of belief by gender and race. Despite the 2008 election, and 2012 reelection, of an African American president, white males continue to hold power disproportionately in the United States.34 If marginalized people drift toward marginalized beliefs, should we then expect women to express more belief in such topics than men, and nonwhites to show more interest than whites?

With respect to gender, we do find gender differences (see figure 3.4). Women are more likely to believe in the ability of some people to foretell the future and that places can be haunted. And while an effect for astrology does not appear in this simple analysis, women are more likely than men to believe in astrology, once we control for other demographic and religious characteristics (see the appendix).35 Men, on the other hand, are more likely to believe in two items we would characterize as discovery-based forms of the paranormal—UFOs and Bigfoot.

At first glance, paranormal beliefs do, indeed, appear to be powerfully related to race (see figure 3.5). Here we compare white respondents, African American respondents, and Hispanic respondents.36 African Americans demonstrate significantly higher levels of belief in Atlantis, the ability of some people to foretell the future, astrology, and prophetic dreams. However, many of these simple, bivariate effects are masking more complex relationships. Once we control for income, education, religion, and other personal characteristics (see the appendix), most racial effects disappear, with only the higher belief in Atlantis amongst African Americans remaining statistically significant in the presence of such controls. These findings suggest that racial effects on the paranormal likely have more to do with the correlation between socioeconomic characteristics and race/ethnicity than with race itself.

Those who have less education tend to have less success in earthly affairs and may be presumed to seek comfort in the paranormal. Or perhaps, those with less education attempt to exert control over their lives via the supernatural. At least these are less offensive explanations than the popular argument that people with lower levels of education are simply more gullible than others. Nonetheless, there is indeed some evidence that education is associated with paranormal beliefs. Consider the relationship between schooling and paranormal beliefs presented in figure 3.6.

Here it is clear that obtaining a college degree has a dampening effect on paranormal belief. Those who have college degrees are significantly less likely to believe in Atlantis, fortune-tellers, astrology, haunted places, prophetic dreams, UFOs, and Bigfoot. In more complex analyses presented in the appendix in which we control for a host of other demographic and religious characteristics, these effects remain for all but UFOs and Atlantis, indicating that the effect of education on paranormal belief is powerful and quite consistent. So it does seem that the paranormal may occasionally serve the function of bringing “power” to the powerless, of giving people on the margins a way to exert control.

The figures presented so far in this chapter show that paranormal beliefs vary by core demographic measures, particularly gender and education. In figure 3.7 we present a complete profile of paranormal belief by analyzing the impact of demographic characteristics simultaneously. This allows us to identify more definitively which items matter most. Is it gender, education, or income that matters, or do all three matter equally? In some cases, demographics exhibit a powerful relationship to paranormal beliefs, allowing for a composite profile of the typical believer. For example, a younger female with a lower level of education and income who happens to be either married, divorced or separated, or cohabitating is the most likely person to believe that places can be haunted. In other cases, we can tell very little. When it comes to UFOs, males are more likely to believe than females, but a UFO believer could be a male of any age group, marital status, racial group, and may have a higher or lower level of education and income. Further, some characteristics matter more than others across paranormal beliefs. Marital status is quite a powerful predictor of paranormal belief, being significantly related to all beliefs but UFOs (more on this in chapter 6). Income, education, and gender also have fairly consistent effects. Lower levels of education are associated with all beliefs except Atlantis and UFOs. Lower levels of income increase paranormal belief as well, with the exceptions of, again, Atlantis and UFOs, but also fail to tell us much about prophetic dreams.

	Atlantis	Fortune-Tellers	Astrology	Places Can Be Haunted	Prophetic Dreams	UFOs	Bigfoot
Gender	---	Female	Female	Female	---	Male	Male
Age	---	---	---	Younger	Younger	---	---
Race	African American	---	---	---	---	---	---
Marital Status	Cohabitating	Cohabitating	Not Married	Married, Divorced/Separated, Cohabitating	Widowed, Divorced/Separated	---	Cohabitating
Income	---	Lower	Lower	Lower	---	---	Lower
Education	---	Lower	Lower	Lower	Lower	---	Lower

Figure 3.7. Profiles of Paranormal Beliefs in the United States (Chapman University Survey of American Fears 2014, n=1573)

These data partially support a marginalization thesis of why people believe in the paranormal. In no cases are society’s most privileged demographic, highly educated, high-income white males, the predominant believer in a paranormal phenomenon. But is also clear that marginalization hypotheses are not a complete explanation for paranormal beliefs. Race tells us virtually nothing about paranormal belief and men are more likely to believe in some paranormal topics than are women.

Armed with this information we can provide a preliminary answer to the doctor’s question. People who believe in the paranormal are different in some ways. We can predict someone’s level of belief in the paranormal if we know certain things about them. Groups with less societal power, such as women and those with lower levels of education or income are somewhat more paranormal in orientation. Those with a college degree are least likely to believe in any of the paranormal items.

Of course, it is one thing to be open to the possibility that aliens exist and quite another to know that they exist because you have seen one or even been aboard a UFO (if you are lucky or unlucky, depending on the scenario). Perhaps these are the truly marginalized—people so distanced from society that they live within the realms of the strange and unreal. A detour into the subculture of UFO abductions allows us to consider this possibility. We also consider an alternative hypothesis—maybe belief in UFOs, Bigfoot, and other paranormal topics can be the luxury of the privileged, as opposed to the cry of the oppressed.

The Paranormal Experience: Alien Abductions in the United States

On September 19, 1961, Betty Hill, a New Hampshire social worker, and her husband, Barney, a postal worker, were driving home from a vacation in Canada when they spotted a “white star” in the sky. The Hills ignored the object until they became convinced it was tailing their car. A “chase” ensued during which they became extremely frightened. At one point Barney pulled to the side of the road to gaze at the object through binoculars. The object tilted downward in response and began a descent. Barney panicked as a row of windows came into focus, behind which stood figures in shiny black uniforms and matching caps. Fearing the creatures were going to capture him, Barney jumped back into the couple’s car to escape. And then . . .

The couple was suddenly closer to home, with no memory of how they got there. Puzzled, they wearily completed their journey. The next day Betty called Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to report the encounter.37 Unable to forget the incident and plagued by nightmares, Betty became fascinated with UFOs. She checked out books from the library and contacted Donald Keyhoe, a well-known UFO investigator and author. Another UFO investigator, Walter Webb, interviewed the couple, who were frustrated by fragmented memories of being aboard the witnessed saucer. In reconstructing their terrifying evening with still other investigators, the Hills realized that the usual four-hour drive from Canada to New Hampshire had taken them seven hours. Where had they been during this “missing time”? The couple believed there was more about their experience to be uncovered. They tried to find the exact site of their encounter, but this did not help spur memories. Meanwhile Betty continued to dream about beings with strange faces performing medical experiments upon her.

By December 1963 the couple had contacted the Boston psychiatrist Benjamin Simon. The Hills hoped that hypnotic regression might help them to recover a more complete account of their UFO encounter, and Simon was experienced with the technique. The skeptical therapist agreed to help the Hills, though he believed their stresses had a more earthly than extraterrestrial explanation.38 From January to June 1964 the Hills had occasional meetings with Simon, during which he hypnotized one or both. A fantastic tale emerged from these sessions, supposedly filling in the blanks of their memories.

It seems that the object that tailed the couple several years previous had landed near their car. Several strange creatures then emerged and escorted the dazed Hills into their craft. Barney described the odd creatures in a hypnosis session with Simon. At first he likened them to a “red-headed Irishman” and then a “German Nazi” before ultimately settling upon a description more familiar to modern-day UFO enthusiasts:39

[They] had rather odd-shaped heads, with a large cranium, diminishing in size as it got towards the chin. And the eyes continued around to the sides of the head, so it appeared that they could see several degrees beyond the lateral extent of our vision. . . . The texture of the skin . . . was grayish, almost metallic looking. . . . I didn’t notice any hair . . . [and] there just seemed to be two slits that represented nostrils.40

The beings subjected the couple to a series of medical examinations. They placed Barney on a table that was too short for his body and poked and prodded him with an assortment of tools. They expressed great curiosity about his false teeth and pulled them out, bewildered as to why Betty’s teeth could not also be removed. Betty endured skin scrapings, nail clippings, a “pregnancy test” in which a long needle was inserted into her abdomen, and some type of full-body scan with a strange device. During her examination, Betty conversed with an alien who appeared to be the leader of the crew. When she asked where he was from, the leader produced a “star map” that Betty later drew from memory.41 Eventually, the creatures escorted the Hills from the ship, during which time an argument broke out between the leader and crew members. The leader had given Betty a book full of strange symbols that she planned to use as proof of the encounter. Other crew members protested. Not only did they not want Betty to have physical evidence of the encounter, they did not want the couple to remember the events at all. The leader relented, took the book, and somehow “erased” the couple’s memories of the encounter. During their sessions with Simon the couple were adamant that their memories had been “immediately wiped out after they left the [UFO]” and that hypnosis had not created their memories, but recovered them.42

John G. Fuller’s recounting of the Hill tale, The Interrupted Journey: Two Lost Hours “Aboard a Flying Saucer,” became a best-seller in 1966. It was serialized in Look, a popular magazine of the time, and was the subject of a 1975 television movie starring James Earl Jones as Barney and Estelle Parsons as Betty. Unfortunately, Barney enjoyed little of the resultant fame; he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1969. Betty, on the other hand, became a celebrity in UFO circles and the subject of frequent interviews and documentaries until her death in 2004.

The publication of the Hill story arguably created the new phenomenon of UFO abductions.43 Although abduction narratives have evolved over time, they share certain features. The abduction is usually at the hands of diminutive, gray-skinned beings with large black eyes and oversized craniums, similar to those in the Hill story. So ubiquitous is this little creature in modern accounts that it has been nicknamed the “Gray” in the UFO subculture. Unlike the earlier contactee tales, the first abduction accounts were generally unpleasant and nonconsensual. Abductees often view themselves as victims, not the chosen messengers of extraterrestrials, and report various forms of mental or physical abuse on the part of the aliens, whether it be forced medical examinations or even rape and impregnation. Most abductees also report a period of “missing time” that hides the details of their encounter. Memories erased by the aliens must be recalled in some way, generally through hypnotic regression as pioneered by Benjamin Simon and the Hills. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, dozens of books appeared recounting UFO abduction experiences with these key elements.

Budd Hopkins and the Abductees

In the 1980s the UFO abduction subculture blossomed. Up until this time the ranks of abductees were relatively small. Those few people who reported their tales often became minor celebrities like the Hills. For example, Travis Walton, an Arizona logger who claimed to have been zapped and kidnapped by an alien craft, only to be returned with limited memory days later, was the subject of books, tabloid reports, and, ultimately, a movie called Fire in the Sky. But something happened wherein the count of abductees dramatically increased. We were no longer faced with a few celebrities but a mass of anonymous victims.

Skeptics and believers disagree on what happened. True believers think that people have recognized a previously hidden problem—we are finally aware of alien abduction after ignoring it for years, similar to problems like child and spousal abuse. Skeptics believe that abductions are simply a new panic or mania that spread culturally with the benefit of mass media and tabloid attention. Whatever the perspective, it is clear that a New York artist named Budd Hopkins is largely responsible for the UFO abduction movement.

Born in 1931, Hopkins received an education at Oberlin College in Ohio before moving to New York City in 1953. His interest in UFOs stems from an August 1964 sighting of a large object he could not identify in the skies above Cape Cod. He began to read books about UFOs and followed the Hill case with much interest. By the mid-1970s, Hopkins was an active UFO investigator, focusing upon those cases that involved elements of “missing time.” To uncover what he thought might be hidden memories of abductions, Hopkins began to hypnotize potential abductees, sometimes by himself and sometimes with the help of mental health professionals. The first book related to his investigations, Missing Time, appeared in 1981.

A key revelation contained in Hopkins’s book is that it is not necessary to have a UFO sighting to claim a potential abduction. Recall that Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have memories all along of seeing a strange object in the sky tailing their car and then watching that object speed away. They simply filled the gaps in between. One of Hopkins’s first cases convinced him that a person could have been abducted by aliens without having any prior suspicions. It seems that a young man with the pseudonym “Steve Kilburn” informed Hopkins that he was deathly afraid of a stretch of road between his home and that of his girlfriend. Hopkins thought this “an almost ridiculously flimsy pretext for entering into the costly and time-consuming process of hypnotic regression,” but ultimately relented.44

In 1978, the therapist Girard Franklin hypnotized Kilburn, who recounted a by-then familiar narrative. While en route to his girlfriend’s house on an evening, a strange force had pulled Kilburn’s car to the side of the road. Beings forced him aboard a hovering craft, subjected the terrified man to physical examinations, and then released him—memory erased but with a floating, subconscious fear intact. Armed with these findings, Hopkins embraced the idea that the world might be filled with abductees who have no memories of their abuse save for a feeling of uneasiness or anxiety about a place or a piece of time that could not be accounted for. These feelings might, just might, be evidence of hidden memories of alien abduction ready to boil to the surface with proper therapy.

The second key observation in Missing Time concerns the reported experiences of “Virginia Horton.” She underwent hypnosis with Hopkins and produced memories of encountering gray aliens as a child in the 1950s. But in a later session, she recovered a memory of a different abduction experience that occurred during a family picnic years later. To Hopkins the two distinct memories suggested that extraterrestrials had been tracking Horton throughout her life as part of an ongoing experiment of some kind. This was a virtually unheard-of notion at the time, as other early abductees (such as the Hills and Travis Walton) were assumed to be just unlucky.45 Walton had been at the wrong place at the wrong time when the aliens appeared. Someone else could easily have gone in his stead. Horton’s experience presented an entirely different scenario. Surely it was not chance alone that led this girl to have been abducted (at least) twice? The aliens must be up to something more nefarious. Horton was somehow special to the aliens.

Noting that Horton had reported suffering from a bloody nose after aliens inserted a probe into her nostril (along with similar cases from his files), Hopkins concluded that the majority of abductees show evidence of having multiple abduction experiences going back to childhood. Aliens are using an “implant” or tracking device, usually inserted through a nostril, to keep track of these subjects over time. Clearly the “extraterrestrials need something from humans—possibly a certain kind of genetic structure,” Hopkins concluded.46 By his second book in 1987, Intruders, Hopkins had developed a complete cosmology, drawing upon further revelations from his clients to outline an alien breeding experiment to create half-human/half-alien beings:

I want to describe the general pattern of these accounts. An individual, male or female, is first abducted as a child, at a time possibly as early as the third year. During that experience a small incision is made in the child’s body, apparently for sample-taking purposes, and then the child is given some kind of physical examination. There will often follow a series of contacts or abductions extended through the years of puberty. In some cases sperm samples will be taken from young males . . . and ova samples taken from young females. . . . In the cases in which artificial insemination is attempted, the women are apparently re-abducted after two or three months of pregnancy, and the fetus is removed from the uterus.47

Hopkins’s theories changed the nature of the abduction phenomenon and opened the door for UFO-related support groups to emerge—the first of which met in his New York apartment. Hopkins’s informal group eventually morphed into the Intruder Foundation, which along with the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER) and the International Center for Abduction Research fostered the development of support groups across the country and referred potential abductees to local therapists.48

Hopkins spurred such interest in alien abductions that in 1992 a truly astonishing event took place—a dreadfully serious conference on the subject at MIT. A discussion of UFO abductions as mass delusion would not have been surprising in such an august academic setting, but that MIT hosted dozens of talks on subjects ranging from the specific procedures reported by abductees once aboard alien spacecraft to speculation about the biological characteristics of alien/human hybrids was unprecedented.49

Hopkins passed in 2011. David Jacobs, a retired Temple University history professor, has since taken up leadership of the UFO abduction movement. Books such as Secret Life (1993), The Threat (1999), and Walking among Us (2015) outline an evolving eschatology regarding extraterrestrials that the first author watched him present to the December 2015 public meeting of the Mutual UFO Network in Costa Mesa, California.

In a talk titled “The Workforce in the Abduction Phenomenon,” Jacobs told the assembled UFO enthusiasts about the goals and methods of alien abductors. Jacobs has been informed of a complex hierarchy of extraterrestrial beings by UFO abductees he hypnotizes in therapy sessions that goes far beyond the “Grays” that were the focus of earlier abduction research. At the top of the alien pecking order are the “Insectalins,” beings that look similar to giant praying mantises. The Insectalins do not engage in abductions themselves. Such work is left to the Grays, which come in tall and shorter varieties. Underneath the Grays in this hierarchy are the Reptalins, bipedal, reptile-like creatures who are uncommon, but occasionally take part in alien abductions. Grays and Reptalins engage in abductions in order to gather the genetic material necessary to engineer hybrids. Over the years the aliens have become sufficiently adept at creating half-human/half-alien creatures that Jacobs has started calling the latest models “Hubrids.”

Resting at the bottom of the alien hierarchy are the abductees themselves, said Jacobs. In addition to providing the genetic materials required by the alien hybrid program, abductees are often tasked with teaching the Hubrids about life on Earth, so that they can more easily pass as human. Hubrids are now “moving into apartments in groups of two, three, and four” said Jacobs, indicating that the aliens’ goal to reseed Earth with half-alien/half-human creatures is well underway.

Alien Life Support

Aileen Bringle was in a deep sleep in the passenger seat of her car when her husband shook her awake. The couple was on their way to Stanfield, Oregon, passing through an expanse of wheat fields. She was shocked to find that, as far she could see, the land was “encompassed in a brilliant green light between kelly and chartreuse . . . everything, myself and my husband included, was green.”50 The terrified couple could never find the origin of the intense light that finally faded when they rounded a bend in the road, but it forever changed Aileen’s life. She devoured books, magazines, and videos, looking for answers to her own experience, and she became fascinated with those of others. She was ultimately drawn to the tales of people who had been contacted or abducted by aliens and feared they lacked the necessary support to deal with the resultant trauma and ridicule. Determined to help, Aileen founded the UFO Contact Center International in 1981. She publicized the new group through advertisements and by leaving brochures at New Age fairs. Its mission:

The UFOCCI (UFO Contact Center International) was started with the purpose of helping people to examine their bizarre experiences as a result of being abducted by strange beings and being taken aboard what we know of as flying discs, commonly called UFOs. After gathering the information, which has come from all parts of the globe, piecing together parts of the puzzle, the serious investigation began.

Of immediate attention and concern, this organization has focused on the humanoids from our universe. We have been watched and monitored since WWII, perhaps being programmed for their use in a future takeover. Many abductees report that they have had something inserted into their nostrils, implanted into the brain at the base of their heads!51

Although it is now defunct, the organization spread quickly during its heyday. The first UFOCCI center opened in Federal Way, Washington, a bedroom community of Seattle, and quickly expanded to sixty-five affiliate centers around the United States and into Canada. These centers were largely autonomous, holding meetings when and where they wanted, but Aileen had become a certified hypnotist in order to help the members recover abduction memories, and she encouraged affiliates to provide the same service. The UFOCCI even produced its own magazine for a time, Missing Link, which contained tips on how to conduct abduction therapy and record personal abduction accounts, as well as news and announcements.

The first author (Chris) observed the monthly meetings of the Federal Way UFOCCI on an intermittent basis between 1989 and 1997, hoping to gain insight into the lives of people who claim dramatic paranormal experiences, and the group graciously allowed someone with no claimed UFO encounters to observe. Meetings followed a standard format. They opened with an overview of recent news, recited by Aileen, from the UFO community. Participants would then discuss whatever UFO story or sighting had captured their interest, often followed by a guest speaker—an author of a UFO book or a self-proclaimed channeler of aliens. In a certain sense, all of this was setup for the main event—the sharing of abduction tales. Once other activities died down, Aileen would ask those present to share any newly recalled encounters that emerged from recent abduction therapy sessions. Aileen conducted most of these therapies herself. Any member who felt that she had experienced “missing time” could contact her for help in recalling details of possible abduction events. Some of the memories shared at the monthly meetings were, indeed, very fresh, having been recovered in hypnosis sessions with Aileen mere days or hours before.

Budd Hopkins popularized the notion that the abducting aliens are, if not evil and selfish, at least indifferent to human suffering and expressed outrage at the “physical rape of the abductees by a group of aliens apparently interested . . . in replenishing their own failing genetic stock.”52 David Jacobs has only continued to promote the idea that alien abductions are part of an evil extraterrestrial plan. Yet, despite this tendency toward the negative among some of the UFO subculture’s leading figures, other researchers argue that pessimistic views of “abduction” experiences are based on fear, paranoia, and misunderstanding.53 It is possible that the aliens have our best interests at heart and that the experiences only seem terrifying because we do not understand their full purpose. Positive abduction researchers such as Richard Boylan argue that “[f]or most of us, the ETs who have contacted us have become interesting acquaintances and, in some cases, friends. After getting over our initial fright and upset, we have come to share a deep respect for them.”54 As the ranks of abductees with a less negative spin on their experiences grew, they developed a new term, “experiencers,” to describe themselves, devoid of the negative baggage attached to “abductee.”

The personal stories of UFOCCI members definitely did not fit into tidy categorical boxes. During the same December 1996 meeting, one member recalled a harrowing account of abduction and humiliating medical experiments at the hands of aliens, while another told of a friendly invitation to board a spacecraft for a tour of the universe.

“Clay” even told of a UFO abduction in a previous life. He has hazy memories of working as a pilot in the 1930s. During a routine flight he experienced engine troubles, and while assessing his situation, a saucer-shaped object moved into position in the sky alongside him. The shock of witnessing the craft and the several “small, gray-skinned creatures” that appeared at its windows caused Clay to lose concentration and crash to the ground. Suddenly, he found himself viewing the wreckage of his plane from above, the mysterious saucer hovering above him. The ship somehow pulled his “spirit” aboard, flew away, and docked with an “enormous mothership.” Once aboard the ship Clay noticed that he had a new body. His skin had become extremely white, and he was wearing a silver jumpsuit. Two small “Grays” introduced him to the crew, which featured humanlike aliens who were working in concert with the Grays. Three beings led Clay into a small room, seated him in a recliner, and showed him a movie of his just-ended life. They then ushered him into another small saucer, flew past the moon to a blue-green planet, and brought him to a room filled with glass coffins. An alien helped him into one of the coffins, and he immediately passed out. His next memory is as an infant, sitting in a crib looking up at a happy Gray alien floating near the ceiling. The aliens helped Clay to reincarnate in his current form, he believes. It is now incumbent upon Clay to discover the “higher purpose” behind these extraterrestrial manipulations.

As the end of the day’s UFOCCI meeting neared, the conversation between Aileen and other members turned to scars. Alien experimentation on humans, it seemed, could leave scars on one’s body. The presence of such scarring without an explanation was a sign of a hidden alien encounter. Aileen asked if I had any scars on my hands. Pointing to a long, ridgelike scar on my right pinkie finger, I admitted that I did not know how it occurred. Aileen chuckled to herself and winked at the others. “Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll find out.”

Province of the Elites?

In spending time with people who claim to have experienced the paranormal, we have been continually struck by how poorly they seem to fit a marginal person model. For instance, while searching for Bigfoot with members of the North American Wood Ape Conservancy (see chapter 5), we found ourselves sharing the woods with three men who were intelligent and capable, rather than marginalized and disenfranchised. Two of the three men claim to have had visual encounters with the creature. Clearly, then, not all aspects of paranormal belief and experience fit most people’s preconceived notions.

To find out what UFO abductees are like I asked the UFOCCI for permission to conduct a national survey of the organization.55 The UFO subculture is very conspiracy-minded, so at first some members were concerned that I might be a government agent who would pass their personal information on to intelligence agencies. But after spending time with the group and assuring them that survey information would be kept anonymous, they finally gave permission to submit surveys to UFOCCI affiliates around the country in 1989. Ultimately I was able to gather detailed demographic information on fifty-five people who claim to have been abducted or contacted by extraterrestrials, the most extensive survey of its kind.

Nearly all of the UFO abductees (89%) reported their race as white, with the remaining respondents describing themselves as Native American. Despite the fact that one of the first abductees, Barney Hill, was an African American, alien abductions appear to be the province of whites. More striking were the findings for income and education. In 1990 fewer than half of Americans surveyed (46%) had attended college, compared to the majority of UFO abductees (68%).56 On the other end of the education spectrum, only about 12% of UFO abductees did not have a high school diploma, compared to almost a fourth of Americans (22%). More than half of the abductees held well-paying, white-collar jobs; they were electronics technicians, professors, therapists, and marketing representatives. Unless we choose to define someone as a fringe member of society simply because they claim to have been abducted by aliens or are chasing Bigfoot (which might be a reasonable definition to some), abductees are not marginal people. Many of the people we have met would be better described as elites.

One way to understand why elites might be attracted to the paranormal is to think of paranormal beliefs and experiences as something that is “cutting edge.” Whenever a new technology enters the market there are people who immediately embrace it, people who are excited by new things and ready to take risks. Marketers call such people “early adopters.” Then there are the rest of us, who want to wait until a new idea or technology is fully proven before we jump onboard. Early adopters tend to be those that have more education, more income, and expansive social networks. They are people who have been continually exposed to new ideas throughout their lives via higher education and contacts with other educated people. They also have the resources to try new things. It is hard to imagine people doubting the staying power of the television, but when TV first became available it was the more educated, higher-income people who purchased the first sets.57 Of course, people with higher levels of income could both afford the new sets (new technologies are always more expensive when they first appear) and ignore the risk if TV did not take off. The latest smartphone is a less risky purchase for someone making $100,000 a year than for someone scraping by on $10,000.

If we conceive of the totality of religion in America as a marketplace of supernatural ideas, then the paranormal represents fringe and often relatively new “products.”58 A number of religion scholars have suggested that a similar rule applies as to the consumption of other new products; early adopters of new religious ideas would be elites. Those with higher educations will have been exposed to a wider variety of new ideas and even a variety of religions they may not have experienced otherwise. In addition, rapid social and technological change can create existential crises, a deep questioning of basic beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life. Younger and better-educated individuals are more likely to be acutely aware of rapid change, more likely to suffer such crises, and more open to new explanations.59 Elites are religious innovators, seekers, and adapters.60 Thus we might expect elites to be more likely to create new supernatural products and more likely to adopt those products once they appear.61

In fact, the histories of many religious movements have shown exactly this. For example, the early Mormons drew their first members from the more prosperous, educated areas of New York State.62 Then there was the New Thought movement, which billed itself as a bringer of universal brotherhood, decried racism and sexism, and sought stronger links between science and religion. It was nurtured by the highly educated urban elite culture of Boston and Harvard University during the second half of the nineteenth century,63 and counted among its practitioners and supporters Ralph Waldo Emerson and the inventor Phineas Quimby.64 The Human Potential Movement of the 1960s developed a bohemian village (Esalen Institute) for those who were seeking to uncover the life force of the universe and use its power to transform mankind. It was co-founded by Stanford graduates Richard Price and Michael Murphy, and the noted scholar Aldous Huxley was an early advisor.65 Scientology has become noted for its ability to attract wealthy and powerful members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Even members of witch covens tend to be in professional and white-collar occupations.66

But lest we think that the paranormal is a safe playground for the creative elite, we must also consider its inherent risks. To delve into unconventional beliefs and practices is to run the risk of being labeled strange or deviant.67 For people who are already socially marginal, being labeled a deviant is of lesser importance. Those with a lot of resources are somewhat protected from the consequences of risky behaviors, but at the same time they have more to lose. Engaging in deviant behavior can have a detrimental effect on one’s social standing for members of higher socioeconomic classes. Just as it is important to belong to the right clubs, drive the right cars, live in the right neighborhood, and make the right friends to maintain one’s social standing, it is also important to maintain the “right” religious practices.

When it was revealed that former first lady Nancy Reagan was consulting an astrologer about White House business, she became the object of scorn and ridicule—it was not the type of thing that someone of her standing should be doing. In fact, on November 7, 2008, then president-elect Barack Obama made an off-handed remark in a news conference about Reagan’s paranormal practices, for which he later apologized.68 Interestingly, not much was made of George W. Bush’s persistent practice of opening cabinet meetings with prayer.69 One is a conventional practice, the other is not.

A former vice-mayor of Phoenix, Arizona, by the name of Frances Emma Barwood, learned a similar lesson about the dangers of embracing the paranormal. On March 13, 1997, hundreds of persons reported lights in a flying V-shaped formation above the city, an incident known as the “Phoenix Lights.” Those who witnessed the lights were not pleased with the government’s official explanation of flares set off by the Maryland Air National Guard on special maneuvers over the Arizona desert. At a Phoenix City Council meeting, Barwood asked her colleagues to help investigate the light sightings, seeking a more convincing explanation. She was met with both silence and ridicule. Her situation was not improved by a spoof press conference called by then governor Fyfe Symington, featuring his chief of staff wearing a Gray alien costume. Ms. Barwood later described the humiliation:

I remember Mayor Rimsza handing out business cards with my name on it, saying, Frances Emma Barwood from the planet Xenon. Talk into the aluminum foil and she’ll hear you. Or something like that. And he was handing them out to people like that. I wonder why they were so intent upon ridiculing me, other than to just shut me up. He was even on television, doing a speech before National Guard pilots, and he ridiculed me about trying to find out about things flying over Phoenix.70

Barwood’s career suffered. She tried to run for secretary of state, but her opponent garnered 76% of the vote. Ironically, ten years after the event, the same former governor, Symington, admitted to having seen the Phoenix Lights himself. He had refused to acknowledge this in 1997, knowing what it would mean for his career.

There are some signs that the public costs of expressing some interest in UFOs may be diminishing. Speaking in New Hampshire in January 2016, Democratic presidential candidate and former first lady, senator, and secretary of state Hillary Clinton responded to a reporter’s questions about Area 51 and UFOs. Candidate Clinton vowed to “get to the bottom” of the extraterrestrial issue. She, and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, are both on record as being open to the possibility that Earth may have been visited by aliens.71 Surprisingly, in a highly contested presidential campaign, this story received very little attention in the national news cycle. Perhaps those in power are becoming less afraid of admitting to paranormal beliefs?

Paranormal Experiences in the United States

Do the wealthy flock to the paranormal as a creative outlet or avoid UFOs and the paranormal for fear of embarrassment and lost country club memberships? Paranormal experiences are, in fact, surprisingly common in the United States (see figure 3.8). The most common is having a dream that came true (41%), followed by consulting a horoscope (27.5%). Nearly 12% of Americans have taken the trouble to personally consult a psychic, medium, or fortune-teller for information about their future or to understand current circumstances, 13.7% report having lived in a haunted house as an adult, and 15.9% of Americans have witnessed a craft in the sky that they could not identify.

Academics love to be able to tell a clear, straightforward story with their data. Unfortunately, the paranormal simply refuses to behave. When we break down paranormal experiences by key demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, race, marital status, income, and education, we find a complicated tale (see figure 3.9). By running a series of analyses we can determine which factors predict the likelihood of claiming a series of paranormal experiences. For example, whites are most likely to report having lived in a haunted place. The likelihood of claiming a haunting is increased if a person has lower levels of education and income. Marital status is also related to hauntings—people who are married, divorced or separated, or cohabitating are more likely to report hauntings than are people who are either widowed or single. However, hauntings are equally reported by those of all ages and of both genders.

Gender is related to several paranormal experiences, with women most likely to claim them. Women are more likely to report having consulted a horoscope, visited a psychic, and to have had a prophetic dream. We can say that, in general, women are more paranormally oriented than men. But from here the story gets more complicated, as simplistic notions of who has specific paranormal experiences are incorrect.

If paranormal experiences are the province of the marginalized, we should find a powerful relationship with education, income, and race. Yet income and education are only related to one paranormal experience—living in a haunted place. People of all levels of income and education are equally likely to report consulting horoscopes, visiting psychics, having prophetic dreams, or a UFO sighting. Race is also related to paranormal experiences in an inconsistent manner. African Americans are more likely to report prophetic dreams than others. However, whites are more likely to claim hauntings and whites, African Americans, and Hispanics are more likely to consult horoscopes than those of other races and ethnicities.

People who join and form new religious movements tend to be from the upper classes, but we do not find conclusive evidence that paranormal experiences are primarily a creative outlet for the privileged few.72

Perhaps our most important finding is that we cannot use simplistic, broad-brushed explanations to understand the paranormal. Nevertheless, we can dismiss one stereotype conclusively—people who believe in and experience the paranormal are not simply “nuts.” We find no evidence that paranormal beliefs or experiences are the exclusive realm of hyper-marginalized people, as we should expect if they have mental problems.73 More than half of Americans (figure 3.8) claim at least one of the following paranormal experiences: consulting a horoscope, visiting a psychic, living in a haunted house, had a prophetic dream, using a Ouija board, or witnessing a UFO. To attribute these beliefs and experiences to being “crazy,” we would have to believe that over half of the adult population of the United States is “crazy,” a frightening prospect to be sure.

	Consulted Horoscope	Consulted Psychic	Lived in Haunted Place	Had Prophetic Dream	UFO Sighting
Gender	Female	Female	---	Female	---
Age	Older	Older	---	---	Older
Race	White, African American, Hispanic	---	White	African American	---
Marital Status	NOT Married or Widowed	Not Widowed	Married, Divorced/Separated, Cohabitating	Divorced/Separated	Cohabitating, NOT Widowed
Income	---	---	Lower	---	---
Education	---	---	Lower	---	---

Figure 3.9. Profiles of Paranormal Experiences in the United States (Chapman University Survey of American Fears 2014, n=1573). Demographics were not significantly related to using a Ouija board.

Oftentimes we search for simple answers to phenomena we do not understand. For example, “brainwashing” is frequently trotted out to explain why people join strange religious groups even though sociologists have been outlining the complicated reasons people do so for years.74 In a similar vein, it is much easier to flippantly label someone as nuts if they have seen a UFO than it is to delve into the complex sociological, psychological, and idiosyncratic reasons why someone might interpret a light in the sky as extraterrestrial in origin. The media relies on such demonization and simplicity far too often. Complex stories make poor copy.