SUBJECT: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE COMIC-BOOK KIND FILE: UFO2235
05/02/94
THE WASHINGTON POST
Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack fails to specify exactly what it is
about the alien abduction stories that convinces him of their validity. He
touches on two possibilities: that his sample population appears to be a cross
section with no obvious psychological disturbance, and that the stories share
a consistent theme. In his last paragraph, he alludes to the argument that
this is a higher spiritual something to weep about; I cannot respond to that.
But his prototypical abduction story touched me - could I have repressed
memories of an abduction? No, unlike his patients, I remember my first
abductions story encounter. I was 8 years old, reading my uncle's copy of
Incredible Science Fiction Comics in August 1955. It told of protoplasmic
beings from somewhere else, who upon observing that man "chose, instead of
peace, a path of violence" decide to kidnap a breeding pair "of the highest
possible type."
Since there were hundreds of such stories written and millions of
copies published, it is not surprising that Dr. Mack has encountered lots of
people with the same silly ideas rattling around their heads. It is surprising
that no one appears to have noticed that the story lines belong to 1950s comic
books. Now this doesn't preclude the occurence of actual abductions that just
happen to resemble comic books, it simply offers an explanation.
As for his cross-section argument, consider that dime novels written in
New York and a commercial rodeo invented the Old West and cowboys, a culture
and way of life that never existed. And now, 100 years later, we have country-
and-western music recorded on digital audio and country line dancing enjoyed
by millions of people who have never been on a horse. Most of them have strong
feelings about the West and the way of life it represents, even though they
are a random sample and exhibit no obvious psychological disturbances.
What is damning to Dr. Mack's case is the description of the beings busy
monitoring, performing specific tasks and carrying out mechanical functions.
Don't these superior beings have microprocessors and embedded control systems?
In the 1950s, comics and B-movies, (see the opening scenes of "Forbidden
Planet") depicted the crew watching dials and twisting knobs as they fiddled
the spaceship to the destination. Today, we have automated most of these jobs
away. I would expect superior beings to have something better than Intel 486DX-
66s and OS/2 Rexx for their mission's critical applications, although that is
difficult for me to imagine.
CORY K. HAMASAKI
Alexandria
Close Encounters of the Comic-Book Kind
Column: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
05/02/94
THE WASHINGTON POST
As a licensed and board-certified mental health counselor, I read with
interest the beliefs of John Mack on UFO abductions.
Dr. Mack, in describing the variability and mental health he observes in
these individuals, overlooks the work in the literature describing "fantasy-
prone" personalities: These people score normally on psychological tests and
do not demonstrate pathology during interviews, but have imaginative and
hypnotic abilities not found in the general population - i.e., they are highly
suggestible and unable to distinguish normal recollection from confabulated or
externally stimulated memories.
Dr. Mack notes great consistency of detail in the stories of the
abductees; this is hardly surprising given the exposure that the standard
story has received in books, movies and articles such as Dr. Mack's. Indeed,
it would be unlikely that many individuals would construct an experience that
challenged the prevailing parameters.
Dr. Mack's suggestion that there is something rigid and limiting about
science as a tool for understanding how everything works, including ourselves,
is disingenuous at best. I cannot imagine telling a patient suffering from
horrific hallucinations that his reality is just as good as mine and perhaps
just as accurate. There is in psychology a concept called "object constancy" -
simply put, this means that while feelings can be individual and personal,
reality is the same everywhere and can be measured. If your car doesn't start
there is a comprehensible reason; the car is not depressed or having an
emotional crisis. The memory of being abducted does not place space ships
overhead.
Evidently, these aliens are visiting us for biological and reproductive
reasons. There is lots of penetration, by instruments and worse, presumably to
(a) reconduct tissue sampling that they have done, we gather, on thousands of
people before, and (b) impregnate our females so that hybrid creatures can be
conceived and then kidnapped and taken back to the home planet. One can only
be amazed that beings who can make trillion-mile trips through space evade our
most sophisticated radar - and visit repeatedly without leaving the slightest
credible physical trace of their existence and promote human amnesia and
obedience at will - would have such primitive science that they could not
reproduce our DNA on their own.
It seems far more likely that we are in the midst of the last gasp of
humanity's sense of its own importance. If we are not at the center of the
universe or galaxy, or even the solar system, perhaps we are so special that
everyone wants to come here; and perhaps, even more important, there would be
good reason not to feel so alone.
SEAN O'NEILL
Annandale
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