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With the publication of ETH True-Believer Budd Hopkins' controversial
Witnessed, those who question his theories and investigative
methods may have some reason to cheer. A devastating assessment
of the CE3 event discussed in the book, titled A Critique of
Budd Hopkins' Case of the UFO Abduction of Linda Napolitano, and
written by Joseph J. Stefula, Richard D. Butler, and George P.
Hansen (1992), was re-released on the Internet in response to
the appearance of Hopkins' volume. Other extensive and negative
assessments by critics such as Hilary Evans are also circulating
the Net, and should encourage an enlightened debate.
A paramount problem for ufology is that it has too long been dominated
by the ETH, and specifically by the alien/genetics interpretation
of abductions. Proponents' credulous and enthusiastic advocacy
of this view -- without a speck of solid evidence -- is regrettable,
for it can readily be shown that the theory's influence on ufology
has been scientifically deadly. All the more reason to reconsider
two studies that Hopkins, along with many other proponents, has
used to support his ETH interpretations.
The Fund for UFO Research (FFUFORI) subsidized both works more
than a decade ago. The first, undertaken in 1983 by a group headed
by Hopkins, supposedly showed that abductees are not mentally
disturbed. The rather odd second study analyzed about 300 abduction
narratives and first concluded that CE3 experiences are psychological
and not physical events; then, inscrutably, it reversed itself;
and then it finally qualified the reversal. (More about which
another time.) Both of these papers quickly became supposed icons
of ETH research support without, it appears, adequate consideration
of some major flaws.
The paper, "Final Report on the Psychological Testing
of UFO 'Abductees'" (1985) supposedly demonstrated that
abductees are psychologically normal people who are recounting
actual events. This was a remarkable conclusion, if true. Hopkins,
along with many other proponents, has used that interpretation
of it repeatedly over the years to support his views.
The "Final Report" involved nine of Hopkins' subjects
who were given personality tests that were then analyzed by a
psychologist, Elizabeth Slater, Ph.D., in a blind evaluation (i.e.,
the psychologist did not know they were abductees). Although Slater
candidly and somewhat impulsively described Hopkins' nine subjects
as "downright 'eccentric' or 'odd,'" she added that
they seemed within normal psychological limits.
Then she was told of the CE3 connection, and after that she wrote
an addendum in which there are at least two shaky but revealing
assertions. Regarding the question of whether the subjects were
mentally disturbed, her answer is:
...a firm no....based on what we know about psychological disorders, (the abduction claims) could have only come from pathological liars... paranoid schizophrenics, and severely disturbed and extraordinarily rare hysteroid characters...
Note the "only" in the above; her remark is a sweeping
generalization based on a single flawed experiment; it is also
uninformed, insupportable, and unjustified. If she had known about
the Imaginary Abductee regressions which W.C. McCall and I did
in 1977 she could not have said it. And we find that she was not
informed about the Imaginary series because of a second odd assertion:
in her cautionary conclusion she seems to advocate -- wonder of
wonders -- something like an Imaginary series to test Hopkins'
results:
...one would want to compare test findings of these subjects against a random sample of individuals who have not reported UFO abductions to see what kinds of psychological issues might be directly ... correlated.
Her statement is an inadvertent admission of the limitations of
this particular blind study. Was Slater sufficiently knowledgeable
about CE3s and possible psychological hypotheses about them for
her input to be of value? We can not be certain of that, but there
may well be doubts about her competency, as well as that of the
other contributors to the study.
The "Final Report" contains several egregious scientific
lapses - all apparently designed to protect Hopkins' ETH bias.
First, it is obvious that the group was unwilling to follow Dr.
Slater's suggestions about a control or Imaginary CE3 study, because
the paper's summary completely omits Slater's recommendations!
It also excludes her "eccentric" and "odd"
descriptions of Hopkins' subjects. Remember, Hopkins' group was
determined to show that CE3 witnesses are apple-pie normal; and
so in the conclusion they were trying to hide the fact that the
study's own expert found its subjects a bit abnormal, and its
methodology a bit wanting -- two matters which certainly raise
questions about the validity of the entire project.
Again, the introduction to the report, written by FFUFORI's founder
Bruce Maccabee, admits (very obliquely) that -- incredibly - Hopkins
did not select his subjects for this study randomly as he should
have! This means Hopkins (or someone) could have chosen the "right"
people to skew the study's results!
That is a major falsification for a supposedly scientific study.
Especially so in view of the evident marginal emotional stability
of some of Hopkins' abductees (not to mention the bizarre nature
of his entire movement). We should wonder why Hopkins deliberately
chose those particular subjects -- and also why, if FFUFORI head
Maccabee saw the flaw, he nevertheless accepted the study and
its dubious conclusions.
The study employs biased rhetoric almost at will. For instance,
its summation changes Slater's cautious judgment that the narratives
were "not inconsistent with" [a physical event] into
"consistent with" - a 180-degree exaggeration.
Also, the report's slyly phrased concluding statement contains
still other attempted deceptions -- it is a marvel of non-commitment:
In sum, the test results neither support the "psychological explanation" of UFO abductions, nor in any way contradict the disturbing hypothesis that these nine people are recalling actual experiences....
The statement, by its implications that the paper validates Hopkins'
work, is an obvious mangling of Slater's remarks, and an unjustified
claim about this experiment. Slater clearly desired additional
psychological data (as her call for comparisons with non-abductee
controls reveals), and thus she leaves the questions raised by
the study wide open.
And yet -- a word-by-word analysis of the concluding statement
shows that it has been carefully crafted to say...not much of
anything. In fact, we would be equally justified (by the study)
in restating the sentence as follows (though I don't think Hopkins'
group would like these very different implications):
In sum, the test results neither contradict the "psychological explanation" of UFO abductions, nor in any way support the disturbing hypothesis that these nine people are recalling actual experiences....
Similar examples of tendentious prose -- all of it intended to
buttress Hopkins' theories -- are easily found throughout the
report. I am surprised at how vulnerable the study is to simple
close reading. God knows what might be found by an alert psychometrist.
After twelve years, and counting, the Hopkins group's flawed "Final
Report" now threatens to become thought of as a seminal ufological
work. Unquestioned by Hopkins' followers, it was a major support
study for the infamous Roper report, "Unusual Personal
Experiences" (1992). That poll of about 6,000 persons
led to empty claims that millions of Americans had been abducted
by aliens. Hopkins follower and Harvard psychologist John Mack
wrote a commentary in which he took the unusual alarmist step
of warning mental health professionals that "great numbers"
of "experiencers" might contact them as a result of
a TV miniseries based on Hopkins' "Intruders" (Mack
credulously described it as a "docudrama"), which was
then scheduled to be shown several months ahead, on May 17, 1992.
Note: no tide of new "abductees" occurred after the
"Intruders" program.
Again, the "Final Report" was unjustly flattered by
ETH advocate Jerry Clark in the "Proceedings of the MIT UFO
Conference" (1992); and Hopkins himself recently praised
it (in a UFO periodical, 1996) in glowing but inaccurate terms:
"In all the psychological literature there is only one report of an in-depth, blind study of the mental health of abductees - and it shows that [debunker Carl Sagan's suspicions otherwise are] totally unsupportable [sic]."
The FFUFORI/Hopkins study is so deeply flawed that no meaningful
inferences can be drawn from it. The study has not given abductees
"a clean bill of health from psychologists" as one True-Believer
recently asserted on the Net. A second problem with the "Final
Report" is that it is somewhat irrelevant. So abductees are
normal, or nearly so - so what? As our Imaginary Abductee series
proved, most of us -- psychotic and sane alike -- are capable
under the right conditions (i.e., even involuntarily) of producing
a whapdoodle of an abduction yarn right out of the materials in
our perinatal fantasies. That fact is seemingly more germane to
questions about the reality of the ETH and supposed CE3 events
than the mental condition of presumed abductees.
Though it tends to bear out our view that CE3s are psychological,
the Hopkins/Slater paper can not lend the slightest evidentiary
support to CE3 reports as physical events. And so, despite the
hundreds of abduction case investigations by Hopkins, Jacobs,
Mack, and others, the ETH remains an unproved and as yet untested
hypothesis.
Alvin Lawson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown -
Who ponders this tremendous scene -
This whole Experiment of Green -
As if it were his own!
-- Emily Dickinson
(#1333 c.1875)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bloecher, Ted, et al, "Final Report on the Psychological
Testing of UFO 'Abductees,'" The Fund for UFO Research,
Mt. Rainier, MD (1985, 48 pp.)
The Roper Organization, Unusual Personal Experiences, Las
Vegas (1992, 64 pp.)
Evans, Hilary, "Witnessed? Budd Hopkins and the Linda
Cortile Case" (1997, 19 pp.)
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