THE AMNESIA FACTOR IN HYPNOTIC RECALLED UFO ABDUCTION

Ahmad Jamaludin

He has produced a report on his investigations and analysis of Malaysian UFO cases in "A Summary of UFOs And Related Events In Malaysia (1950-1980) which was reprinted by CUFOS. The author has had other reports and/or research articles published in Flying Saucer Review, MUFON Journal, UFO Register and Fortean Times.

Introduction

A comparison was made between fourteen amnesia and fourteen non-amnesia UFO abduction experiences as a search for possible clues to the actual cause of memory block in hypnotic-recalled UFO abduction experiences. The comparative results seem to suggest that hypnotic-recalled UFO abduction experiences are another form of the UFO abduction event and that post-hypnotic suggestion from UFO abductors does not play an important part in inducing amnesia. The most logical alternative it is suggested is attributable to the time difference between UFO and earth reality times. This usually happens when the UFO time is longer than earth time and not vice versa.

Abduction Claims

Claims of being abducted by entities from UFOs usually appear in two forms. One, the witness consciously remembers the shocking experience of being taken aboard the UFO, given a physical examination and then released. Second, the witness reports a sighting – a strange light in the sky – and of the light then shooting away. Later, the witness becomes aware of a "time loss" and under hypnosis the UFO abduction event emerges.

While the first case could be termed a true UFO abduction, many workers have questioned the validity of the time loss experiences (1-3) when related under hypnosis. The experiments by Lawson (4,5) seem to place more doubts on these types of UFO abduction claims. To top it all even the validity of the hypnosis itself has been challenged (6).

In view of these controversies, an attempt to analyse UFO abduction experiences cannot question the validity of using hypnosis at this early stage. It is insignificant to what is related under hypnosis. The most important thing is to determine whether time loss experience are another form of a UFO abduction. If so what makes it different from the true UFO abduction? Most important of all is what actually causes the amnesia.

Materials and Methods

For this analysis we have taken fourteen cases with reported time loss and amnesia (TABLE 1). Only four main criteria are adopted, as follows:- (1) the environmental situation/condition just before the abduction; (2) whether there is any intelligible communication from the abductors; (3) whether there is a possibility of hypnotic suggestion from the abductors; (4) the personal condition of the abductee immediately after being released, i.e. within a period of about five minutes.
 
 

Name(s) Of Abductee(s)	Condition Before Abduction	Intelligible Communication	Hypnotic Suggestion	Condition After Release
Betty Andresson	Normal	YES	YES	Normal
Herbert Schirmer	Normal	YES	YES	Normal
John & Elaine Avis	Abnormal	YES	NO	Normal
Louise Smith, M.Stafford, Elaine Thomas	Abnormal	YES	YES	Abnormal
Carl Higdon	Abnormal	YES	NO	Abnormal
F.Zanfretta	Abnormal	YES	NO	Abnormal
David Stephens	Abnormal	YES	NO	Normal
John Hodges & Pete Rodriquez	Normal	YES	YES	Normal
Lee Parish	Normal	NO	NO	Normal
Dionisio Llanca	Normal	YES	NO	Abnormal
Barney & Betty Hill	Normal	YES	YES	Normal
Peter and Francis*	Abnormal	YES	YES	Normal
Charles Moody	Normal	YES	YES	Normal
Judy Kendal	Normal	YES	NO	Normal

• This refer to a South African case in which the participants wish to remain anonymous. An account of the abduction was reported in FSR 21:2 and their true names are on file with FSR.

TABLE 2 lists another fourteen cases relating to non-amnesia UFO abduction experiences.
 

Name (s) Of Abductee (s)	Condition Before Abduction	Intelligible Communication	Hypnotic Suggestion	Condition After Release
Charles Hickson & Calvin Parker	Normal	NO	NO	Normal
L.Quintero	Normal	NO	NO	Abnormal
Salzburg case (1951)	Normal	NO	NO	Normal
Lehi, USA case (1973)	Normal	NO	NO	Normal
Taunton, UK case (1973)	Normal	YES	NO	Abnormal
Antonio La Rubia	Normal	NO	NO	Normal
Benjamin Parravicini	Normal	YES	NO	Normal
Alejandra dePascucci	Normal	NO	NO	Normal
Jose Antonio deSilva	Normal	NO	NO	Abnormal
Gilberto G. Ciccioli	Normal	NO	NO	Abnormal
Carlos Alberto Diaz	Normal	NO	NO	Abnormal
Travis Walton	Normal	NO	NO	Abnormal
Antonio Villas Boas	Normal	NO	NO	Abnormal
Jan Wolsky	Normal	NO	NO	Normal

Results

A comparison was made from these two types of UFO abduction events and certain characteristics were noted. TABLE 3 lists the percentage of the observed traits. It is evident that the most distinguishing factor found in amnesia cases is that intelligible communication from the abductors accounted for nearly 93 percent of the cases. The opposite seemed to occur for the non amnesia events. Post-hypnotic suggestion from UFO abductors is non-existent in non amnesia cases. In the amnesia cases, the possibility of post-hypnotic suggestion to forget the experience is observed for only half of the cases studied.

TABLE 3. Percentages of the Main Criteria Found in Amnesia and Non Amnesia UFO Abduction Cases.
 

Criteria	Amnesia Cases	Non-Amnesia Cases
Normal condition before abduction	57.1	100
Abnormal condition before abduction	42.8	0
No intelligible communication	7.1	85.7
Intelligible communication	92.8	14.2
No post-hypnotic suggestion	50	0
Post-hypnotic suggestion	50	0
Normal condition after release	71.4	57.1
Abnormal condition after release	28.5	42.8

Discussion

What actually causes the amnesia? Since, in only half of the amnesia cases post-hypnotic suggestion seems to play a part in inducing amnesia, the other 50 percent of the cases must, therefore, have been caused by some other factor.

That an abnormal situation is encountered in 42.8 percent of the amnesia cases is a good indication that a certain trance-like situation was created to put the witness in hypnotic state. This correlates well with the possibility that post-hypnotic suggestion occurs in 50 percent of the cases. In the non amnesia cases, a normal condition was encountered in all the events (100 percent) therefore we do not expect any form of hypnotic suggestion to take place. This is confirmed in our sample cases (with 0 percent).

Lawson postulated that the hypnotic-recalled UFO abduction experience is the relieving of the birth trauma experience (7). He has shown that most of the characteristics or image-constants found in imaginary UFO abduction (8) and hypnotic-recalled UFO abduction claims are identical to drug-induced hallucination and death-bed narratives. There is, however, one main flaw in the theory. During the birth process, the baby does not use telepathy or any other means of communication with either parent or doctor. The comfort the baby finds with its mother is more by instinct and adaptability rather than by communication. If the birth trauma hypothesis is correct, why is it that 92.8 percent of the witnesses claimed some form of intelligible communication with the abductors? In the consciously recalled UFO abduction events 85.7 percent of the cases did not involve communication.

Why is it that intelligible communication occurs more frequently in amnesia cases than non-amnesia cases? (93 percent versus 14 percent). We have no answer at the moment but any researcher attempting to explain away the hypnotic-recalled UFO abduction experience must also explain this observed trait.

There is, however, one important factor which may have a bearing on the amnesia cases. This factor is TIME. There have been several cases of time dilation in UFO abductions. What is found in these cases is that the witness estimates of time on board the UFO is shorter than their actual time that they were missing on earth (e.g. deSilva (1969), Walton (1975) ) In these type of events, the witness does not suffer amnesia. On the other hand, the Valdes case (1977) was the opposite. His missing earth time was only about 15 minutes but his abduction time frame was five days. This, interestingly, turns out to be an amnesia case. This offers us a good suggestion of time (both earth and UFO time) determining whether the abduction event would result in amnesia or not. If UFO time and earth time are not the same, as the cases seem to suggest, then if 15 minutes of a person’s life time is taken and placed in another time frame that is moving faster, the possibility is that once he returns to the earth time frame after release, he cannot remember what had happened in the UFO time frame because it cannot be recorded in his conscious memory. If one hour of witness time is taken and introduced into another time frame that is slower, say, for example 15 minutes, the witness can remember the event as during the one hour, the conscious memory has ample time to record what occurred during the 15 minutes UFO time. To use an analogy, if a person was asked to watch a film lasting one hour within a period of 15 minutes, he would be confused and uncertain of what he had seen. On the other hand if he was given one hour in which to view a 15 minute film he could describe exactly what he had seen. In our analogy the time is constant only the show is speeded or slowed down. In UFO abduction events, there are two different time frames and if the time is not in favour of the abductee’s time (i.e. the earth time) viz a longer UFO time, a type of time shock would occur, hence the amnesia.

Conclusion

As post hypnotic suggestion from UFO abductors does not contribute in inducing amnesia in all the time lapse cases, the most logical alternative may be due to the time difference between earth and UFO time. Since there are extreme time dilation cases, ranging up to five days, there must, therefore, be "borderline" time differences where the difference between the earth and the UFO time range from minutes to hours. In these cases it would be difficult to determine the actual UFO time unless the witness could give a fairly good estimate. Amnesia and non-amnesia cases are therefore of the same origin and stimulus and cannot be separated. The conditions of time determines whether the abductee would remember or forget the experience. If UFO time is longer than earth time, then the time shock would result in amnesia. The opposite does not occur if UFO time is shorter than earth time.

References

1. Ann Druffel. Hypnotic Regression of UFO Abductees. Flying Saucer Review. Vol. 25, No.5. pp 28-31. 1980
2. Steuart Campbell. Hypnotic Fantasies. JIAP. Vol.2. No.3. pp 52-55. 1982
3. Alvin Lawson. Hypnotic Regression of Alleged CEIII cases. Flying Saucer Review. Vol. 22. No.3 pp 18-25. 1976.
4. Alvin Lawson. Hypnosis of Imaginary UFO ‘Abductees’. Journal of UFO Studies. Vol. 1. No. 1 pp 8-26. 1979.
5. Alvin Lawson. The Abduction Experience: A Testable Hypothesis. Magonia. No. 10. pp 3-17. 1982.
6. Keith Hearne. A Cool Look At Nothing Special. SEAP Journal Vol. 1. pp 1-14. 1982.
7. Alvin Lawson. A Testable Hypothesis For The Origin of Fallacious Abductions Reports: Birth Trauma Imagery In CEIII Narratives. Proceedings of 1981 CUFOS Conference.
8. Alvin Lawson. op. cit. 1979.