Here's a letter I wrote about the Linda Cortile abduction saga two years ago:-
Subject: Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abduction
Book: Witnessed: The Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abduction (1996)
I much enjoyed reading Ryan Sprague’s article, The Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abduction, in the current edition of Open Minds magazine. Although it concluded that the case remains open, in my opinion this case is firmly shut and quite definitely false. My reasons for thinking so are based on a knowledge of the principal characters involved rather than any prejudice I have against, or in favor of, the reality of the alien abduction phenomenon.
To understand the case properly one must look very closely at the two principal protagonists: Budd Hopkins and Linda Napolitano. I knew both of them having first met Budd at a UFO conference in Lincoln, NE, in 1992. I kept in touch with Budd and sometimes had the opportunity of speaking with him at length on the abduction phenomenon. Back then I was certainly prepared to believe the testimony of alien abductees but I did repeatedly ask researchers, including Budd, whether there were any independent witnesses who had seen abductees being taken from their homes or taken up into UFOs. I later wondered if such queries may have suggested a title for his third book.
Budd told me in 1992 that at last he had just such a case that had happened with one of his abductee subjects in November 1989 in New York City. At a later date I met that abductee, who was, of course, Linda Napolitano (also known as Linda Cortile).
Budd Hopkins was a great guy and he was a charismatic character who inspired both men and women. He was the world’s leading UFO abduction researcher and I’ve no doubt that he sincerely believed in the physical reality of UFO abduction. All this made him a guru and it drew to him a devoted following which some might describe as a cult. To feed the demands of this he urgently needed physical confirmation of alien abduction and this proved to be his Achilles heel. The Linda case spoon-fed Hopkins with just such “witness” confirmation, bit by bit, but one of his worst failings seems to have been he suspended any critical judgement of it, not making even the most basic checks.
I have attached a photo of Linda which I took back then, about 20 years ago, when she was 45. As one can see, she was very attractive and looked quite a bit younger than her real age. She was only too well aware of this and the effect she had on many men. There were few men who would challenge anything she told them. In fact, there’s little doubt in my mind that she saw herself as a femme fatale both in real life and in the roles which she created for herself in her fantasy dramas which played out like comic strip adventures.
Just such a fantasy drama was her abduction by aliens near the Brooklyn Bridge and also her abduction by the shadowy “Dan” and “Richard” which all formed part of the plot of this ongoing fictional adventure. This was relayed to Hopkins in various letters which supposedly originated from Dan and/or Richard. The Open Minds article acknowledges that the unfolding story was most likely based on the plot of Garfield Reeves-Stevens’s novel 'Nighteyes' which Linda had undoubtedly read. Everything in the Brooklyn Bridge story is centered on Linda, revolves around Linda, and portrays her as a beautiful woman quite irresistible to men. Both Dan and Richard are besotted with her, each in their own separate way. This extraordinary adventure story portrays our heroine, Linda, as an almost child-like woman who is abducted by aliens, kidnapped, in constant danger, but always just managing to survive, escape, or be rescued. Is there really anyone who still believes that these were real life events?
Well, I guess Budd Hopkins did, or certainly he pretended he did. Here in a series of dramatic installments was the confirmation of alien abduction that he so badly wanted. He needed to accept this at face value for the sake of his promised third book which was entitled, 'Witnessed --The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions'. If he had rejected the case as false and accused Linda of lying, he would be shooting the goose that laid the golden eggs. After all, how is a writer who has set out on this course going to make a living? The 1996 book had to deliver and it had to be sensational, which indeed it was. Inclusion in the title of the words “The True Story” was arguably justified as he had definitely received letters and a brief phone call or two from the alleged “Richard” and “Dan” in addition to all that Linda told him. That at least was true, even if what Linda claimed, and what was in the letters, was not.
Budd’s failure to make the most basic checks on the story being supplied to him was a serious failing. He even omitted to ask the guards at Linda’s apartment building whether they had seen the flying saucer and its immensely bright light at 3 am on the night of the supposed abduction. He accepted invisible witness “Janet Kimball’s” testimony that cars were backed up on the Brooklyn Bridge and terrified people were screaming in horror at the sight of Linda and small aliens being beamed up into a large UFO. No one else confirmed this scenario. In fact Budd never met with Dan or Richard who communicated with him only through dubious rambling letters. I once urged him to insist on a meeting or else, I said, this “witness testimony” has no validity. Such anonymously supplied “evidence” would never be admitted in a court case.
The shortcomings of Hopkins’s abduction research and his often gullible acceptance of testimony from some highly dubious individuals were highlighted in early 2011 by his ex-wife Carol Rainey. Many UFO buffs, and alien abduction devotees in particular, leapt to his defense castigating Rainey, and insisting that what she had said was untrue or worthless. This, they claimed, was the bitchiness of a woman scorned, and Hopkins was almost characterized as a saint. In the Open Minds article there was similar refutation, but I ask readers to look again at what Carol Rainey said. Ignoring her criticism of Budd’s abduction research seems to me very indicative of closed minds.
By the time that Witnessed was published, I had little doubt at all that Linda Napolitano was what I would call a fantasy-prone drama queen. The extraordinary thing is that so many people have willingly suspended disbelief in her story because they are so anxious to believe in the reality of the UFO abduction phenomenon. What Linda gave Budd Hopkins was confirmation --and more confirmation-- of this, and that was the thing he most wanted. To use a crude analogy, what would you, or anyone, do if you kept receiving bundles of $100 bills through the mail at irregular intervals? Would you contact the police or try to trace one’s mysterious benefactor to put a stop to it? If we are honest, I suggest the majority of us would simply pocket the money and spend it. This is, perhaps, a bit like what Budd Hopkins did.
If by now there’s still anyone not convinced that Linda Napolitano made up the whole saga of the Brooklyn Bridge Abduction, I will leave you to consider the following. Not many months after the terrible events of 9/11 in New York City, Linda started privately telling people that she had been at the very heart of it on that awful day. By unbelievable coincidence she claims she had arranged to go for a job interview as a legal secretary with a law firm that was on the 104th Floor of 1 WTC. This was in the North Tower of the WTC and her interview was scheduled for 8.45 am –just one minute before the first hijacked plane struck. Supposedly she was a little delayed and still in the lobby then.
Needless to say Linda claims she barely escaped with her life and witnessed first hand terrible scenes including bodies crashing down outside from the tower above. Caught in the building she eventually made a dramatic escape running barefoot over broken glass into the street where she became caught up in a blinding, stifling dust cloud that resulted from the collapse of the South Tower. Needless to say the few people who allegedly saw her there perished or were lost in the confusion. No one alive is able to confirm her story. I can’t disprove it, but I very much doubt that a single word of what she says is the truth.
George Wingfield,
April 2013
