652 lines
36 KiB
Plaintext
652 lines
36 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: THE GREAT HIGH-RISE ABDUCTION FILE: UFO2671
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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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** This article is reproduced for educational purposes only **
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OMNI - Volume 16, Number 7, April 1994
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==================================================================
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The Great High-Rise Abduction
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Whatever spin you put on it, it's definitely the case of the century.
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Article by Patrick Huyghe
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It was cold and clear, about 3:00 a.m., when the car stalled near the
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South Street seaport in Manhattan. Glimpsing up, the passengers - a
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major political figure, who will remain unnamed, and two government
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agents - spied a glowing oval object hovering over a building a couple
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of blocks away. As lights on the heavenly vision changed from
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red-orange to a bright bluish-white, a woman in a nightgown floated
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out a twelfth-story window and hovered midair. The awe-struck
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witnesses watched as the woman, surrounded by several small creatures,
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ascended effortlessly into the bottom of the craft. The object zipped
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over the Brooklyn Bridge and finally plunged into the East River.
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Or so the story goes.
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"It's an extraordinary case," says Budd Hopkins, a world-class modern
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artist who has recently become known for his books, Missing Time and
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Intruders, detailing his 18 years of investigation into claims that
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thousands of people have been abducted by UFOs. A trip to Hopkins'
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studio on Manhattan's West Side reveals the profound influence these
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so-called abductions have had on his art. Scattered around the room
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are colorful, profile-shaped paintings he calls "guardians" that evoke
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nothing if not the aliens in question. Indeed, as Hopkins describes
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his work, his dark, thick eyebrows dance with enthusiasm; these days,
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it is the bizarre tales of UFOs and the nasty creatures who inhabit
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them, plucking innocents from their homes in the middle of the night,
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that consume most of his time.
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If Hopkins seems excited, he explains, it's because he has found a
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case that might convince the army of skeptics who have hounded him for
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years. Unlike the thousands of other abduction cases on record, he
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explains this is the first time independent witnesses have come
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forward claiming to have seen the event take place. Even more
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significant, one of these witnesses is said, in the vernacular, to be
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a Very Important Person. "The implication," Hopkins speculates, "is
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that this was deliberate, a demonstration of alien power and intent."
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Hopkins has never had trouble drawing dramatic conclusions about UFO
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abductions, a phenomenon that emerged, it should be noted, without
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him. The first bizarre story came to public attention in 1966 and
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involved the now-notorious New England couple, Betty and Barney Hill.
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Under hypnosis, the Hills recalled being snatched from their car and
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examined by small creatures aboard a flying saucer. But it would take
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another decade, a few more headline-grabbing abduction tales, and,
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finally, the television broadcast of the Hills own story before tales
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of alien encounters became embedded in the popular consciousness at
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large.
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The stage was now set for Hopkins to emerge as the leading authority
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on abductions. It happened in 1981 with the publication of his book,
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Missing Time, in which he suggested that the abduction experience was
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much more widespread than anyone had imagined. For Hopkins, the plight
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of the abductee became a personal crusade, and before long, he would
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be lecturing on the subject across the country, appearing on one talk
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show after another, and finally writing Intruders, a 1987 best sell-
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er that was turned into a television miniseries in 1992. Clearly, no
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one has done more than Hopkins to bring this strange phenomenon to
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public awareness. Even more to the point, no one has had greater
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success in getting scientists and mental-health professionals to take
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a serious look at abductions.
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So it's no surprise that when Hopkins began touting his latest case as
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the strongest evidence yet for UFOs, their alien occupants, and their
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systematic abduction of human beings, people listened. But as the
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pieces of the puzzle were revealed, critics began charging that rather
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than prove his point, Hopkins had fallen victim to the elaborate
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fantasy of a bored housewife or a complex hoax. Indeed, said his
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detractors, so outrageous was the tale and so fragile the evidence for
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it, it has backfired, destroying his credibility and bringing down his
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body of work like a house of cards.
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The story certainly is a humdinger, with more twists and turns than
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California's Highway 1 and more mystery characters than a Le Carre spy
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thriller. "It's a crazy, endless saga," says Hopkins, including such
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elements as secret agents, attempted murder, and two high-level
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political figures, Mikhail Gorbachev one of them.
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The central character in the case is Linda. She does not want her last
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name revealed. She lives in Lower Manhattan, and on the very hot
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spring day I went to meet her, I came to appreciate why the aliens had
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decided to grab her through the window. It certainly beats penetrating
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a locked gate and the scrutiny of a guard, then taking an elevator up
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12 stories and winding your way through a corridor to her place. When
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I knocked on the door, I was greeted by an attractive, fortyish woman
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with brown, almond-shaped eyes and long, flowing brown hair. We sat
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down on her couch, and as her air conditioner blasted arctic air and
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she smoked a dozen cigarettes, I was treated to one mind-boggling
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tale.
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It started early in 1988. Linda had just bought Kitty Kelly's
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biography of Frank Sinatra and another book, which she took to be a
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mystery. The other book was Intruders by Budd Hopkins. By the end of
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the first chapter, she was stumped: Aliens had left mysterious im-
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plants in people's brains and noses; and that last little bit bothered
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her. Thirteen years before, she had found a lump on the side of her
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nose and had gone to a specialist who said it was built-up cartilage
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left over from a surgical scar. But she had never had any such
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surgery, even as a child, she said. Linda then took my finger and put
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it on her nose: Yes, I could feel a very slight bump on her upper
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right nostril. But there had to be more than this, I thought. There
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was.
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A year later, Linda finally contacted Hopkins, who decided to explore
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Linda's past with his favorite tool - hypnosis. "It felt kind of
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strange," Linda says. "I'm just a wife and mother. I'm just Linda.
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UFOs? Naw."
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Hopkins says he learned otherwise. He regressed Linda to age 8,
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enabling her to recall an episode in which she thought she glimpsed
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the cartoon character Casper, of Casper the Friendly Ghost fame. But
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under hypnosis, her memory of Casper turned out to be a large, top-
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shaped object that she'd seen flying above the apartment building
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across the street from her childhood home in Manhattan. Hopkins came
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to suspect that she had been abducted by aliens and by June of 1989
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had invited her to join his support group for abductees.
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"I remember sitting there bug-eyed listening to these people," says
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Linda. "I felt strange the first time, but after that I felt better."
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Finally, on November 30, 1989, a very agitated Linda called Hopkins to
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report she had been abducted again. She had gone to bed quite late, at
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about ten minutes before 3:00 a.m., because she'd been up doing the
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laundry. Towels and blue jeans for four take eons to dry in her small
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dryer, she explained. Her husband, who normally worked nights, was on
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jury duty that week and so was home and asleep in the bedroom. She
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showered, got into bed and lying on her back, clasped her hands and
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began reciting "Our Father" to herself, a habit she carried over into
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adulthood from her Roman Catholic up-bringing. Then she felt a
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presence in the room.
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"I was awake but had my eyes closed," she recalls. "I was afraid. I
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knew it wasn't my husband; he was snoring away. Then I lay there
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wondering, Did I lock the door? Is it one of the kids?" She called out
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the names of her two boys and finally reached out for her husband.
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"Wake up," she said, "there's somebody in the room."
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He didn't answer, and she began to feel a numbness crawl up from her
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toes. After months in the support group exploring her past abductions,
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she recognized what that meant. _Its now or never_ she thought and
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opened her eyes. At the foot of the bed, says Linda, stood a small
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creature with a large head and huge black eves. "I screamed and
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yelled" she says, "and then threw my pillow. The creature fell back."
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After that, she has only fragments of conscious memory-a white fabric
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going over her eyes; little alien hands pounding up and down her back;
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suddenly falling back into bed.
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It was a quarter to 5:00 in the morning when Linda jumped out of bed,
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ran into the kids' room, and discovered, she says, that "they weren't
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breathing." Hysterical, she retrieved a small mirror from the bathroom
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and placed it under their noses. Suddenly, a mist formed on the
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mirror, she says, and she heard her husband snoring in the other room.
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They were all alive. Linda, in shock, sat on the floor in the hallway
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between the two bedrooms until dawn. Later she called Hopkins.
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Under hypnosis, Linda revealed that there had actually been five crea-
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tures in the apartment. They had led her from the bedroom through the
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living room and out a closed window, she declared, where, floating in
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midair, she saw a bright bluish-white light. She was afraid of falling
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and embarrassed, thinking her nightgown had gone over her head. She
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moved up into the craft and then found herself sitting on a table. The
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creatures around her, she says, were scraping her arms- "like taking
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skin samples," she speculates, and pounding with an instrument up and
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down her spine - all typical abduction fare, to say the least.
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Quite atypical is what allegedly happened 15 months later. In February
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1991, Hopkins received a typewritten letter from two people claiming
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to be police officers. Late in 1989, the letter said, the two had
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witnessed a "little girl or woman wearing a full white night- gown"
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floating out of a twelfth-floor apartment window, escorted by three
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"ugly but small humanlike creatures" into a very large hovering oval
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that eventually turned reddish orange. The object, the letter added,
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flew over their heads, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and plunged into the
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East River. They wondered if the woman was alive, though they wished
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to remain anonymous to protect their careers. They signed the letter
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with first names only Richard and Dan.
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Hopkins was astonished. "I realized immediately that the woman they
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had seen was none other than Linda," he said. "The account seemed to
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corroborate the time, date, and details of her abduction. Here,
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finally, were independent, seemingly reputable witnesses to an
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abduction."
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When Hopkins first called Linda to tell her, she replied, "That can't
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be possible." Then she wondered if she and Budd were the victims of a
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cruel joke. But all suspicions vanished one evening a few weeks later,
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she says, when Richard and Dan showed up at her door.
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"Police," they announced. Linda looked through the peephole and saw
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two men in plain clothes flashing a gold badge. "So I let them in,"
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said Linda, "and they looked at me kind of funny. When they introduced
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themselves as Dan and Richard, my stomach dropped to the floor." Both
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were tall, well-built, attractive men in their forties, she says. Dan
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sat on the couch, put his head in his hand, and said, "My God, it's
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really her." Richard had tears in his eyes and hugged her, expressing
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relief that she was alive."
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"Budd had warned me not to discuss the incident with anyone," Linda
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says now "so all I could do was tell them to talk to Budd.'
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In the year that followed, Linda claims, she had numerous encounters
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with the mystery duo - at bus stops, outside her dentist's office,
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even at church. Hopkins himself never had the pleasure of meeting the
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pair, though, he says, he did eventually receive three more letters
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from Dan and four letters and an audiocassette from Richard. In one
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letter, says Hopkins, Dan explained his need to remain anonymous: He
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and Richard were not New York City cops, he said, nor on that fateful
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November night had they been alone. They were, in fact, government
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security agents and had been escorting an important political figure,
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who they would not name, to a downtown heliport; suddenly their car's
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engine died and the headlights went out. They had seen Linda's
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abduction unfold after they pushed the car to safety under the
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elevated FDR Drive.
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Dan and Richard just couldn't stay away. One morning, after Linda had
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walked her youngest son to the school bus at 7:15, she claims she was
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approached by Richard, who asked her to take a ride in his car. She
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refused, but Richard's grip firmed on her shoulder. "You can go
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quietly or you can go kicking and screaming," Linda claims Richard
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told her. As he dragged her to the open rear door of his black Mer-
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cedes, he tickled her, Linda states. "That's how he got me in the
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car."
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"They drove me around for about three hours," says Linda, "asking me
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all sorts of questions." Did she work for the government? Was she
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herself an alien? They even demanded she prove herself human by taking
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off her shoes. Aliens, they would claim in a letter to Hopkins, lacked
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toes. She called Hopkins as soon as they dropped her off at home.
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"Hopkins told me to call the police," Linda now explains, "but I
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refused. Who would have believed me?" The notion of surveillance by
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Richard and Dan eventually spooked her so much that she quit her
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secretarial job and simply stayed home. To ease Linda's isolation,
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Hopkins found a benefactor who paid for Linda's limited use of a
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bodyguard so she could go out.
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Unfortunately, the bodyguard was not around for what Linda says was
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her second major encounter with Richard and Dan. On October 15, 1991,
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Linda reports, Dan accosted her on the street and pulled her into a
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red Jaguar. As they drove along, he sometimes put his hand on her knee
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- "to distract me," Linda suggests, "from following the route to a
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three-story beach house which I assume was on Long Island." Inside,
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Dan started a pot of coffee and gave Linda a present: a nightgown, she
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says, "the kind a woman might wear if she didn't have any children,
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especially sons." Dan asked her to put it on so he could photograph
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her in it as she appeared mid-abduction, floating over New York. She
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refused but finally agreed to put it on over her clothes. As Dan's
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behavior became increasingly strange, she decided to flee, running out
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the door and onto the beach.
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"Dan caught me and picked me up , shaking me like a toy," she says.
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There was mud on my face, so he dunked me in the water once, twice,
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three times. I don't think he was trying to drown me, but he kept me
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under too long." This behavior, which critics of this strange tale
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have termed "attempted murder," finally ceased. Instead, Dan pulled
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off Linda's wet jeans and, she says, pulled her down on his lap in the
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water, rocking her like a baby. Shortly after, Linda reports, "Richard
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showed up, apologized for Dan, and drove me home."
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Linda went straight to Hopkins. "She left sand all over my house,"
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Hopkins says. "A few weeks later, I received a half dozen photographs
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of Linda, in the nightgown, running along the beach."
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That November, the saga became stranger still. While lunching with
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Linda, a relative who was also a doctor insisted she go to the
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hospital to x-ray the lump in her nose. The x-ray Linda now presents
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shows a profile of her head; clearly visible is a quarter-inch-long
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cylinder apparently embedded in her nose.
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"It was weird," says Hopkins' friend Paul Cooper, professor of
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neurosurgery at New York University, who has examined the x-ray. "I've
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never seen anything like it." But even Cooper admits the x-ray could
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have been faked by taping a little something to the outside of Linda's
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nose.
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Moreover, as usually happens in UFO stories, this tantalizing bit of
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evidence vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Soon after getting
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the x-ray, Linda told Hopkins she'd awakened with a bloody nose. Under
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hypnosis, Hopkins says, Linda revealed that the aliens had again
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whisked her away. Later, with Cooper's help, Hopkins had further
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x-rays taken, but the implant was nowhere to be seen.
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Meanwhile, another alleged witness to Linda's spectacular abduction
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came forward. That same month, Hopkins received a large manila enve-
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lope from a woman living in upstate New York. On the outside, in large
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letters, appeared the words, _Confidential, Re: Brooklyn Bridge_.
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On the evening of November 29, 1989, the woman - Hopkins calls her
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"Janet Kimble" - had been in Brooklyn at a retirement party for her
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boss. When she headed home via the Brooklyn Bridge around 3:00 a.m.
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she told Hopkins, her car came to a dead stop in the middle of the
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bridge and her headlights blinked out. The same thing, she states,
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happened to the cars coming up behind her. Suddenly, she saw what she
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thought was "a building on fire" about a quarter of a mile away. The
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light was so bright that she had to shield her eyes, she said. Then
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she realized what she was seeing: Four "balls" had floated out of an
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apartment window and, midair, unrolled into three "rickets-stricken"
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children and a fourth, taller, "normal girl-child" wearing a white
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gown. "While I watched," she wrote, "I could hear the screams of the
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people parked in their cars behind me." The "children" were then
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whisked up into the object, whereupon it flew over the Brooklyn Bridge
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and disappeared when her view was obscured by a walkway.
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Hopkins says he telephoned "Janet Kimble" immediately and later had
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lunch with her. The tale told by this "widow of about sixty who once
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worked as a telephone operator" corroborates stories told by Richard
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and Linda, he says, ruling out the possibility of a hoax.
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In fact, if Hopkins is to be believed. another witness to the Linda
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abduction was actually the first. That person, he states, is a UFO
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abductee as well, a woman in her early thirties who claims to have
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been abducted from her Manhattan bedroom in the middle of the night.
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She consciously remembers being outside at some point, moving along
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the streets involuntarily, and seeing 15 to 20 other women all moving
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zombielike toward a UFO on the banks of the East River.
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When Hopkins tells me this, I can't help but guffaw. He finds my
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reaction perfectly understandable. "What can I say?" he says. For
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Hopkins, who is in the midst of investigating another mass abduction
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in New York City involving a hundred humans; this woman's story is
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only "a little more bizarre than most."
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In any event, says Hopkins, this woman at one point looks down the
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East River and sees two other UFOs in the sky, one a bright orange
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object at the southern end of Manhattan, ostensibly the one that
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abducted Linda.
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The two cases, if believed and taken in concert, shed an ominous light
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on the humorous name that some critics have bestowed on the Linda
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case: "Manhattan Transfer." Were the aliens out that night abducting
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Manhattanites like Linda in droves?
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By December of 1991, the end of Linda's saga was nowhere in sight. She
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was now struggling with an obviously disturbed and persistent human
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named Dan, who, according to Richard, had been admitted to a "rest
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home." At Christmas, she received a card and note from Dan. It was a
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love letter actually. He told her he planned to leave the "rest home"
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soon and asked her to pack her toothbrush - he was coming for her. He
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wanted to learn her alien ways and her special language. "You'll make
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a beautiful bride," he teased. Linda, however, was not amused.
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Dan apparently tried to get Linda in February of 1992, but she was
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rescued from this dragon by Richard, whom Linda now regards as a
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knight in shining armor. Linda says that Richard, upon returning from
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a "mission" abroad, had gone to visit Dan at the rest home, found him
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missing, and had come looking for him in New York. When he learned
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that Dan had prepared a passport for Linda and booked two tickets to
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England, he immediately sought out Linda and managed to spirit her
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away just in time.
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Linda's last contact with the aliens occurred a few months afterward,
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On Memorial Day 1992, she, her husband, two sons, and one of their
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guests all awakened at about 4:30 in the morning with nosebleeds.
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Hopkins says he has subsequently confirmed, through hypnosis, that the
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incident was UFO related. "I really don't try to convince any body,"
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says Linda, having come to the end of her story. "I don't expect any
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one to believe this because, to tell you the truth, if the shoe were
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on the other foot, I wouldn't believe it either. But it happened. It
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happened."
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If it really did, I thought, the independent witnesses would confirm
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it. The prize witness obviously was the VIP and the word in the UFO
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community is that Hopkins thinks it was Javier P‚rez de Cu‚llar,
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secretary-general of the United Nations from 1982 to 1991. "I will not
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deny or confirm that," says Hopkins. "I won't say who he is, but I can
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say this: All the letters from Richard and Dan refer to the fact that
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there was a third man in the car. And he's written one letter to me,
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which was signed, _The Third Man_. I can't make the things he said
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public, though clearly he's letting me know between the lines who he
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is."
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Actually, rumor has it that this third party may be central to the
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Linda case. According to anonymous sources close to Hopkins, Richard,
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Dan, and their passenger were _all_ abducted on that fateful day of
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November 30, 1989, right along with Linda. Their delayed recall of
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this event supposedly would explain why it took 15 months for them to
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write to Hopkins, why they were so interested in Linda, and why they
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are so reluctant to come forward now.
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But all that is _certain_ about P‚rez de Cu‚llar is that he was in New
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York City on the days in question. Did he really witness the Linda
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abduction?
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Joe Sills, spokesman for the secretary-general at the United Nations,
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was nice enough to check with the security people but came up empty
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handed. "No one that I spoke to," he says, "was aware of him ever
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being in that part of town at that hour of the morning. It's just not
|
||
in the kind of schedule that he kept." What's more, he added, P‚rez de
|
||
Cu‚llar could not have been heading to the heliport since he always
|
||
went to the airport via limousine. U.N. spokesperson Juan Carlos
|
||
Brandt checked with P‚rez de Cu‚llar directly. "He says he never wit-
|
||
nessed any incident," says Brandt.
|
||
|
||
And adding insult to injury, Hopkins can't even prove that the two
|
||
government security agents, Richard and Dan, are real. He has never
|
||
met or spoken to them, and all efforts to identify them have proven
|
||
fruitless. In March of 1991, for instance, Linda looked through six
|
||
hours of clips of news programs showing security agents at events in
|
||
New York City. The clips belong to one of Hopkins' contacts in
|
||
government law enforcement. Near the end of the six hours, while
|
||
watching a network broad ... ((words missing in article - Don )) ...
|
||
identified as 'Dan.' Despite the fact that the images were taken from
|
||
a distance, involved crowds and the bustling chaos that accompanies
|
||
visiting dignitaries, she apparently had no trouble making her
|
||
identification. Those who have viewed the tapes have seen a man who
|
||
appears to be taking part in official business, and who is in no way
|
||
out of place or unusual.
|
||
|
||
In the months that followed, Hopkins and Linda made the rounds with
|
||
their pictures of "Dan" in hand. They went to United Nations security
|
||
and the State Department, Secret service, and Russian delegation
|
||
offices in New York. At times, Hopkins and Linda would use a cover
|
||
story so as not to arouse suspicion. "Sometimes we said we were
|
||
husband and wife and that this was a friend we had met a couple of
|
||
years ago in Cape Cod and he had said to look him up here when we came
|
||
to New York," Hopkins explains. But the ploy didn't work. "I've been
|
||
all over with these pictures," says Hopkins, "and nobody recognizes
|
||
him."
|
||
|
||
Then there is the woman on the bridge, "Janet Kimble." She is a real
|
||
person but apparently, after being ridiculed by her own family, wants
|
||
no part of Hopkins' story. When Hopkins tried to arrange an interview
|
||
for me, she told him, "I can't help you anymore with this." The final
|
||
independent witness is the woman up the East River who claims to have
|
||
participated in the mass abduction of women that very night. But she's
|
||
another abductee and not truly impartial in the matter.
|
||
|
||
With no independent witnesses willing to come forward, the case, not
|
||
surprisingly, has come under intense criticism. Curiously, two of
|
||
those most critical of the case initially became involved at Linda's
|
||
request.
|
||
|
||
By early 1992, Linda was feeling so helpless at the hands of her human
|
||
kidnappers that she decided to seek additional expert help. At the
|
||
suggestion of New York journalist and UFO researcher Antonio Huneeus,
|
||
she contacted Richard Butler, a former law-enforcement and security
|
||
specialist for the Air Force and a fellow abductee, whom Linda had met
|
||
at Hopkins' support group. Butler met with Linda on February 1, 1992,
|
||
and brought with him Joe Stefula, a former special agent for the U.S.
|
||
Army's Criminal Investigations Command and current head of security
|
||
for a drug company in New Jersey. During the meeting, Linda asked for
|
||
safety tips on how to protect herself from the dangerous duo, and
|
||
Butler and Stefula, in order to give useful advice, asked Linda a few
|
||
questions of their own.
|
||
|
||
Several months later, after Hopkins made the case public at the 1992
|
||
Mutual UFO Network annual meeting in Albuquerque, Stefula, Butler, and
|
||
a friend of theirs, parapsychologist George Hansen, decided the case
|
||
needed a thorough investigation and began poking around Linda's
|
||
neighborhood. They spoke to the security guard and supervisor at
|
||
Linda's building, went to the offices of the New York Post nearby, and
|
||
simply interviewed residents to see if they remembered anything amiss.
|
||
No one did.
|
||
|
||
Afterward, Hansen, already the author of a number of stinging
|
||
critiques of both psi research and its critics, wrote a lengthy
|
||
skeptical report. The central issue, say the skeptics, is the lack of
|
||
large numbers of witnesses to this spectacular event. After all, New
|
||
York never sleeps; there are people out and about even in the middle
|
||
of the night. Why did none of the truck drivers at the loading dock of
|
||
the New York Post just a short distance from Linda's apartment see
|
||
this blindingly bright object? Why haven't all those other people
|
||
whose cars were supposedly stalled on the Brooklyn Bridge come
|
||
forward?
|
||
|
||
To such questions, Hopkins has a two-fold reply: "The unwillingness of
|
||
people to report such fantastic experiences is not new. People do not
|
||
like to be ridiculed," he says. Then there's the invisibility issue,
|
||
"which just seems to be part of the phenomenon. Many people who you
|
||
think should have seen these things just don't," Hopkins explains.
|
||
|
||
But Hopkins can't explain everything. For instance, how could "Janet
|
||
Kimble" know that the words _Brooklyn Bridge_ written on the outside
|
||
of her envelope would attract Hopkins' attention unless she knew or
|
||
was related to one of the people in the Hopkins support group, all of
|
||
whom had heard about the case? The answer, replies Hopkins, is
|
||
ridiculously simple: "She saw the abduction from the Brooklyn Bridge
|
||
and thought that the others who had been stalled on the bridge that
|
||
night might have contacted me about it."
|
||
|
||
But Butler says the likelier explanation is that Linda fabricated the
|
||
whole story after reading _Nighteyes_ , a science-fiction novel by
|
||
Garfield Reeves-Stevens published in April of 1989, just months before
|
||
her alleged abduction. The novel charts the abductions of an FBI team
|
||
staking out a beach house in California while a mother and daughter
|
||
undergo a series of abductions in and around New York City. It
|
||
concludes with an apocalyptic finale. Butler claims that Linda was
|
||
very intrigued when the book was brought up at the Hopkins sup-
|
||
port-group meetings. "I guarantee you that's where she got the basis
|
||
for her story," he says.
|
||
|
||
Butler admits the book's storyline is different from Linda's but says
|
||
there are too many parallels to be coincidence. Both Linda and the
|
||
novel's Sarah were abducted into a UFO hovering over a high-rise
|
||
apartment building in New York City. Linda was kidnapped and thrown
|
||
into a car by Richard and Dan; one of the novel's central characters,
|
||
Wendy, was kidnapped and thrown into a van by two mystery men. Dan is
|
||
supposed to be a security and intelligence agent, while one of the
|
||
book's central characters is an FBI agent. Both Dan and an agent in
|
||
the novel were hospitalized for emotional trauma. Both Linda and the
|
||
novel's Wendy were taken to a "safe house" on the beach. The list of
|
||
such parallels goes on and on.
|
||
|
||
"But similarity does not prove relationship," replies Hopkins. Without
|
||
an important political figure witnessing the abduction-the very
|
||
essence of the Linda case, he notes - the comparison with the book is
|
||
meaningless.
|
||
|
||
Hopkins is not alone. Walt Andrus, international director of the
|
||
Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), is "absolutely convinced the case is
|
||
authentic." And David Jacobs, a history professor at Temple University
|
||
and another researcher on the abduction scene, says the critics
|
||
debunking the case have twisted the facts. "Over the past several
|
||
years, I have been a confidant of Hopkins' and, at times, of Linda's.
|
||
I can tell you that when Hopkins' report comes out, the inaccuracy of
|
||
the critics will be apparent and the case will stand or fall on its
|
||
own merits."
|
||
|
||
For Hansen, of course, those merits are slim. And, he says, the
|
||
hoaxing he believes occurred is the least of it. "For me," he says,
|
||
"the worst infraction is the reaction of the leadership of UFOlogy. I
|
||
think this has given us great insight into the mentality and the
|
||
gullibility of Budd Hopkins, Walt Andrus, and David Jacobs, the people
|
||
who really control much of what people actually read about UFOs.
|
||
|
||
Hansen is particularly upset that, given charges of kidnapping and
|
||
attempted murder, the leadership did not go to the police. "I
|
||
recognize there is government cover-up on UFOs," he says, "but
|
||
covering up a so-called attempted murder and kidnapping, as these guys
|
||
apparently say they've done - that's quite something else."
|
||
|
||
Hoping to right the wrong, Hansen has, in fact, sent a letter to the
|
||
inspector-general's office, Department of the Treasury, requesting
|
||
that Linda's claims of kidnapping and attempted murder by federal
|
||
agents be investigated. In February of 1992, the Secret Service
|
||
contacted Linda and she and Hopkins went down to their World Trade
|
||
Center offices to speak to Special Agent Peggy Fleming and her
|
||
supervisor. Hopkins and Linda told Fleming the story and explained
|
||
that they didn't know who Hansen was or why he was involved. Linda
|
||
also objected to what she perceived as Hansen's insinuation that she
|
||
was against the government. She was not, she said: "I'm a Bush
|
||
Republican."
|
||
|
||
When I called the Secret Service about their investigation, I was
|
||
referred to Special Agent James Kaiser, media representative in the
|
||
New York field office. After reviewing the file on the case titled
|
||
"Special Agent Alleged Mis-conduct February 10, 1993," Kaiser told me
|
||
that Linda "was in fact interviewed at our office, and it was deter-
|
||
mined that her allegations regarding U.S. Secret Service agents having
|
||
any contact with her whatsoever prior to that day were unfounded and
|
||
baseless. It never happened. She may have been mistaking us for some
|
||
other agency or organization. Case closed."
|
||
|
||
The case is also closed as far as Hansen, Stefula, and Butler are
|
||
concerned. They truly believe that Linda is involved in a hoax. "I
|
||
think she started out with a small lie," speculates Hansen "a tall
|
||
tale that grew in the three years that followed. She's been a typist
|
||
and temporary secretary, so she has had access to a lot of different
|
||
typewriters undoubtedly. It would not surprise me if there were
|
||
someone else hoaxing Hopkins as well."
|
||
|
||
Hopkins flatly rejects the hoax scenario. "An efficient hoax has a
|
||
minimum of moving parts,' he says. "you don't want to go into too many
|
||
details. This has more moving parts that one could possibly imagine.
|
||
|
||
As for Linda, when asked if she had made up this whole scenario, she
|
||
replied simply, "No. How could this be a hoax? There are too many
|
||
people involved. In fact," she added, "I take the suggestion as a com-
|
||
pliment. They must think I'm pretty intelligent to pull off such a
|
||
thing. Some details of the case frankly do make me suspicious. For
|
||
one, the drawings of the abduction that Hopkins received from Richard
|
||
and the woman on the bridge not only look like they might have been
|
||
prepared by the same person, despite the stylistic and perspective
|
||
differences, which Hopkins has duly noted, but more importantly, both
|
||
were done in crayons and used the same colors.
|
||
|
||
What's more; to actually meet Linda and hear her talk is to be
|
||
transported to a world where reality is inverted, where all we have
|
||
ever known is flipped on its head. Strain your ears, and you can
|
||
almost hear the chords - from _Twilight Zone_ kick in as the under-
|
||
lying chaos of the universe takes control. Fact is, outrageous as I
|
||
find Linda's story, Linda herself seems sincere. Her emotions -
|
||
fright, anxiety, and anger - appear genuine.
|
||
|
||
I'm not alone in these impressions. John Mack, a professor of
|
||
psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School, whom Hopkins confided
|
||
in as the story unfolded and who now knows Linda well, insists that
|
||
"there is nothing unauthentic or devious" about her.
|
||
|
||
Gibbs Williams, a New York psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a
|
||
quarter century of experience, has tested Linda and also dismisses any
|
||
notion that Linda might be hoaxing the whole affair. "You would have
|
||
to have the kind of conspiratorial mentality of Richard Nixon and be
|
||
able to think sixty-two moves ahead," Williams says. "Quite frankly,
|
||
Linda doesn't appear to have that kind of mind; she does not have that
|
||
kind of abstracting capacity." He notes further that her emotive
|
||
capacity - her anger, crying, and tendency to get carried away - is
|
||
not consistent with the psychopathic cool mentality of the hoaxer and
|
||
liar. "My conclusion," he says, "is that from her perspective, she is
|
||
telling her truth." Perhaps Jerome Clark, vice president of the Center
|
||
for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and editor of the _International UFO Reporter_
|
||
sums up the controversy best: "This is an absolutely extraordinary
|
||
claim, and the evidence that you need to marshal to support such a
|
||
claim simply is not there."
|
||
|
||
Hopkins promises it will be when his book appears. Until then, Linda
|
||
stands alone, ambivalent about her fame. On the one hand, she seems to
|
||
revel in the notoriety. She attends national UFO meetings obviously
|
||
dressed to impress. "To tell you the truth, it wouldn't be that bad if
|
||
I didn't have a family," she admits to me.
|
||
|
||
Yet she also feels victimized. "There are a lot of Italian Americans
|
||
and Chinese in my neighborhood, and many of them even laugh at
|
||
joggers," she says. "Imagine if anyone in the area heard that I was
|
||
abducted by aliens."
|
||
|
||
"Worst of all," she continues, "those critics took away the safety of
|
||
my family by taking my real name and publishing it. We are sitting
|
||
ducks for any crack-pot in the UFO community. They know where I live.
|
||
They know what I look like." She has already taken her name off her
|
||
intercom system, and she fully expects to move when Hopkins' book on
|
||
the case comes out. "I don't know what's worse," she says finally,
|
||
"what Richard and Dan did, what these three stooges from New Jersey
|
||
did, or what the aliens did." Or what Hopkins has done, I might add.
|
||
After all, he promised so much and has delivered so little.
|
||
|
||
Poor Linda.
|
||
|
||
** End of article **
|
||
|
||
(OMNI, ISSN 0149-8711, Copyright 1994 by Omni Publications
|
||
International Ltd., 1965 Broadway, New York, NY 10023-5965. Published
|
||
monthly with a subscription rate of $24/yr.)
|
||
|
||
|
||
**********************************************
|
||
* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
|
||
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