Abduction Digest, Number 69 Wednesday, July 29th 1992 (C) Copyright 1992 Paranet Information Service. All Rights Reserved. Today's Topics: Bathwater Problems Vacation Common Factors in Abudctees? Hopkins ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David.Jacobs@f21.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG (David Jacobs) Subject: Bathwater Date: 20 Jul 92 08:09:53 GMT Pony, thanks for your message. I quite agree that there are people who have hallucinations, who are delusional, who have vivid dreams, and so forth. My guess is that much of the world is bathwater. But the point of abduction research, to a degree, is to make sure that a baby has not been thrown out with it. There is strong evidence to suggest that UFO researchers, unaware of the abduction phenomenon, simply chalked up much of their more puzzling cases to mental aberrations. I know that I am guilty of doing this when I was doing sighting investigations many years ago. I strongly suspect that many others have done the same thing. Incidentally, we have very good evidence to show that unusual or anomalous experiences do not happen to everybody. Budd Hopkins and I contracted with the Roper Poll organization and conducted a systematic survey of 6,000 people in the U.S. to determine just how many of them had had ten different types of anomalous experience. The numbers ranged from about seven percent to about 23 percent. The point is that the vast majority of people do not have the experiences that you have related. I must admit, I have had nothing out of the ordinary ever happen to me, but who knows what might happen tomorrow. Best Wishes Via SPITFIRE Bulletin Board System - Version 3.2 -- David Jacobs - via ParaNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: David.Jacobs@f21.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David.Jacobs@f21.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG (David Jacobs) Subject: Problems Date: 21 Jul 92 08:02:37 GMT I have the highest regard for Mark Rodeghier whom I have known for many years. We discussed the definition at the MIT conference and he agreed that something about investigations should be added to it. He defended his not asking others about the definition, and we disagreed about this. I am afraid that I am going to have to cease communication with you. Your relentless hostility to virtually anything I say is inappropriate to this friendly bulletin board. I am not sure what your problem is, but accusing me of using a psychological ploy, or psychological footwork, and the like, is childish and insulting. If you wish to learn about the abduction phenomenon as I, and my colleague Budd Hopkins have confronted it, then communication may go forward. However, the conversation as it has been recently constituted is something in which I have no desire to participate. Via SPITFIRE Bulletin Board System - Version 3.2 -- David Jacobs - via ParaNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: David.Jacobs@f21.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David.Jacobs@f21.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG (David Jacobs) Subject: Vacation Date: 24 Jul 92 08:13:23 GMT I'll be going on vacation in Cape Cod for a few weeks starting July 25. When I return I'll try to get to the rest of the messages that I have not responded to yet. Cheers. Via SPITFIRE Bulletin Board System - Version 3.2 -- David Jacobs - via ParaNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: David.Jacobs@f21.n1010.z9.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peggy.Noonan@p0.f150.n30163.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Peggy Noonan) Subject: Common Factors in Abudctees? Date: 26 Jul 92 00:14:00 GMT David, I'm enjoying your book very much and have been discussing it with good friends as I progress through the pages. In those talks much appreciation has been expressed for the logical and analytical way you've approached defining the abduction experience -- it's rather like the definition of encounters (first, second, third kind, etc) in its clarity and, actually, simplicty. This is an essential step that other researchers seem to have overlooked in their zeal to tell whichever story they're reporting on in their current books. But a question has arisen too and I'm hoping you can provide some insight on it as well. Given that there are standard events at each stage of the abductee phenomena, there is obviously pattern involved. Is there also pattern in the selection of the abductees? That is, do they have anything in common? Has anyone collated the data on all the abductees to see (as you've done with the abductee phenomena itself) what things are shared in common and what things are not? If we could say that, for instance, abductees are: age 0-52 caucasian, black, hispanic [but not asian] well nourished [not undernourished -- no anorexics] not obese [the opposite defect to undernourished] not bearded though some may wear moustaches and so on...whatever might be accurate, perhaps we could learn something about what kind of people are being selected and if we could learn that, perhaps we could begin to understand why. If the "abductees are" category is too broad, the reverse might work: "abductees are not:" (no one with the following is known to have been abducted--or people who have been abducted don't/aren't the following:) over age 52 asian, eskimo, american indian more than 20 pounds under normal weight for their height more than 30 pounds over normal weight for their height totally bald extremely hirsute ... These are merely examples, of course, and are not intended to suggest that any of this is factual but merely to serve as starting points for discussion. Could something like this be achieved? Or do you believe the selection of "victims" is totally random and never a matter of selection (apart from trying to find people who are not in large crowds.) One person in our discussion mentioned she had never read of abductees -- among those who describe seeing other human abductees in the same area where they're taken and examined -- who reported being in the company of fellow abductees who are handicapped, obese, wearing a cast or similar medical protective device, blind, etc. *If* that proved to be correct, it would indicate there is active selection involved in choosing abduction candidates, and if there's selection then there's a way to thwart it (for those who'd want to.) I will welcome any comments you may find time to make, understanding you're very busy. Thanks for your interest. ==Peggy -- Peggy Noonan - via ParaNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: Peggy.Noonan@p0.f150.n30163.z1.FIDONET.ORG -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John.Powell@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG (John Powell) Subject: Hopkins Date: 27 Jul 92 03:03:04 GMT What have you heard about the latest from Budd Hopkins? "I will be presenting what I believe to be the most important case for establishing the objective reality of UFO abductions that I have yet encountered. It concerns the abduction, in November of 1989, of a woman from her twelfth floor apartment in New York City. This event was apparently witnessed by at least 14 independent observers, four of whom subsequently contacted me. One of these witnesses is a major political figure, two others are security men who were traveling with him, and the fourth is a wom an who happenned to be driving across the Brooklyn Bridge while the abduction was occuring. All four saw the UFO hovering above the apartment building, a bluish-white beam of light shining down from its underside, and watched the abductee, together with three aliens, _floating in the light twelve stories above the street_. [Emphasis BH] (Budd Hopkins, An Open Letter from Budd Hopkins, MUFON UFO Journal, Number 290, June 1992, Copyright 1992 by the Mutual UFO Network, 103 Oldtowne Rd., Seq uin, Texas 78155 , published monthly with a membership/subscription rate of $25/yr.) Thanks, take care. John. - ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.10 -- John Powell - via ParaNet node 1:104/422 UUCP: !scicom!paranet!User_Name INTERNET: John.Powell@f134.n109.z1.FIDONET.ORG ******************************************************************************* Submissions abduct@scicom.alphacdc.com Administrative requests abduct-request@scicom.alphacdc.com FTP archive grind.isca.uiowa.edu:/info/paranet/abduct Permission to distribute Michael.Corbin@paranet.org Private mail to Paranet/Fidonet users firstname.lastname@paranet.org UUCP gateway {ncar,isis,csn}!scicom ********************End**of**the**Abduction**Newsletter************************