On February 24, 2005 Peter Jennings
Productions aired a two-hour prime time show about UFOs and
abductions, “UFOs: Seeing is Believing.” One part of the show
concentrated on UFO sightings and it was excellent. It featured
credible people seeing incredible things. The recreations were
dramatic and effective. It was, without doubt, the best network
presentation of UFO sightings ever done.
The historical segment of the show was in
the main accurate, although necessarily incomplete with a
limited amount of time to do it. It egregiously left out the
name of James McDonald and others and assumed that only
astronomer and UFO advocate J. Allen Hynek was “carrying the
ball” when Project Blue Book closed.
As the show went on, however, one could see
it losing steam. The high standards that characterized the
history and sightings part were inexplicably abandoned.
Although I am not a Roswell proponent, the Roswell section was
inherently unfair because it did not explicate the issues on
both sides and it was mean-spirited in characterizing researcher
Stanton Friedman as a self-promoter. At the end of the show, it
correctly portrayed Peter Davenport of the National UFO
Reporting Center as a courageous UFO investigator, but suggested
strangely that he was the only one and it ignored MUFON and the
hundreds of people throughout the nation who indefatigably
investigate UFO sightings.
There are many other aspects of that awful
second hour that require attention (the SETI people, etc.), but
I will confine my remarks to the abduction sequence. That part
of the show displayed three segments: Abductees telling
snippets of what happens to them and how they feel about it,
Budd Hopkins doing a hypnotic regression and briefly discussing
the abduction phenomenon, and two Harvard psychologists
explaining what was “really” happening.
It must be understood that all debunkers
commit one or more of three errors: 1, they do not know the
data, 2, they ignore the data or 3, they distort the data to
make it conform to their explanations. There are no exceptions
to this rule. For television producers, the appeal to authority
is irresistible, especially if the credentials seem to be the
highest. Thus, Drs. Robert McNally and Susan Clancy proclaim
the abduction phenomenon to be a product of sleep paralysis and
hypnosis fantasies. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about
the subject knows that this is ludicrous. As with all
debunkers, the two professors ignored the evidence or they were
unaware of it. Either way their explanations were
scientifically dishonest, just ignorant, or both. The clear
implication of these explanations was that Hopkins was blind to
the pitfalls of hypnosis and to the fact that all abduction
events take place when the abductees are asleep. The editing of
abductees' comments to suggest that the only experiences they
had were when they were sleeping supported this idea.
The blame for these untruths rests
primarily with the
producers, Justin Weinstein, Jordan Kronick, and Gabrielle
Tenenbaum. They had absolute disconfirming information in their
possession. They were told directly by Budd Hopkins and by me
that sleep paralysis is an untenable explanation because it does
not fit the evidence. We informed them of daytime events,
events that happened with multiple abductees, events that
happened at night when the person was not in bed, events that
happened when a person was driving a vehicle, and so on. In
fact, the taped regression session I did at their request was an
incident that occurred in the daytime while the abductee was
driving. And, we told them that a significant percentage of
abductions were remembered outright without the aid of
hypnosis. Indeed Hopkins pointed out to them that in the first
twenty years of our knowledge of the phenomenon, there were no
cases of abductions occurring when people were asleep.
In my own research, the sleep paralysis
explanation has little statistical support. I have catalogued
669 beginnings of abductions of the nearly 900 regression
sessions I have conducted. Of those, 277 began when the person
was asleep. But 392, or nearly 60%, happened when the person
was not asleep – typically driving, walking, watching
television, and so forth. Although I did not tell them this, I
made the shortfalls of the sleep paralysis explanation very
clear.
Furthermore, I discussed the strengths and
weaknesses of hypnosis with the producers. The vast majority of cases
that I have investigated have memories associated with them that
clearly indicate abduction activity. The abductee tells the
investigator the memories and symptoms before the investigator
begins hypnosis. Hypnosis brings out the details and the
chronology and when used properly does not generate a fantasy.
I made it clear that hypnosis, when used improperly, can support
“channeled” and dissociative memories that are reflective only
of the person’s inner fantasies. I know the difference and so
does Budd Hopkins. We have both worked diligently to make sure
that “channeled” information along with confabulation is
eliminated from substantive memories. The point is that we
understand the shortcomings of hypnosis in the area of abduction
hypnosis better than most professional hypnotists in any area.
It was obvious that the two psychologists were not
sophisticated enough to understand the differences.
But even when the producers fully
understood that sleep paralysis and hypnosis fantasies do not
explain abductions, they decided that they could not allow even
thirty seconds of time to have a direct refutation of the
nonsense being intoned by the authoritative figures. This was
almost certainly a carefully thought-out choice. They preferred
to leave it at that perhaps, and I am speculating here, to
enhance the verisimilitude of the sightings aspect of the show.
The question is: Why does the media act
unfairly when it comes to the abduction phenomenon? Of course
the answer has much to do with the state of UFO research today,
the refusal of the scientific community to engage with the
subject on a realistic level, and the bizarreness of the
subject. The media’s responsibility in this situation is to be
as fair as possible, even though the claims are extreme.
But fairness is not always the best policy. For example,
one would be hard put to be “fair” about Nazi activities by
giving a Nazi viewpoint as “balance.” However, one would expect that fairness would be extended to the enormous number of people
around the world who are describing in exact detail the same
activities that have happened to all of them. In fact, the
media has abrogated its responsibility to be investigative,
fair, and accurate. Investigative reporting has become part of
the entertainment industry. Accuracy takes a back seat to the
demands of time and interest. Putting on a good show is
paramount no matter who is hurt in the process or if accuracy is
sacrificed. The object is to put on a good show, not to reveal
the truth (there are, of course, many exceptions to this in
other areas, but very few when it comes to abductions).
I tell all the brave abductees who agree to
go on camera that you never know how the production will turn
out. It does not matter what the producers say to you. Their
promises mean nothing. Ultimately, you throw yourself on their
tender mercies and hope for the best. Once in a while the
production is good and most of the times, it is not.
Unfortunately, we do not have a great deal of choice. The
normal channels of information about the subject are cut off.
Academic journals will not publish studies suggesting that
abductions are taking place. Scientists are blindly hostile to
the subject -— more so than at any other time in the UFO
history. Unstable people, self-promoters, publicity seekers,
would-be cult leaders, people with New Age, religious, and
spiritual agendas, and serious researchers all vie for attention
in a very small arena. Thus when the opportunity to tell the
public about the seriousness of the situation comes along, it is
better to take the chance and give the show the opportunity to
be right once in a while. If one does not participate and
leaves the field to those characters who would increase ridicule
of the subject, then the show will be wrong every time. We’re
caught in a squeeze but we have to make the best we can of it.
Nobody said it would be easy.
Finally, the Peter Jennings production must
be seen in light of something else of which I am assuming the
producers were unaware. The sighting phenomenon is the abduction
phenomenon. UFOs are here to abduct people. If the show at
least opens the door to the acceptance of sightings as reality,
it can only help abduction researchers in the long run. At
least I hope that is the case, but perhaps my own fantasies are
coming out.
David M. Jacobs
March 2, 2005
