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