December 27th - Budd Hopkins & Doug

[Brian Now]

Doug

I don't know what to say except that you weren't there. When I heard that I thought it was extreme but not unheard of.

You weren't either (two can play that!)

Clearly, asking honest questions about this guy is hurting some feelings around here. Personally, I feel Doug is telling us what he remembers to be true.

I think the questions raised here, not just mine, about his memories are valid and should be expected. It is the Paracast after all. Questions will always be asked!

 

[marduk]

Doug

You weren't either (two can play that!)

Clearly, asking honest questions about this guy is hurting some feelings around here. Personally, I feel Doug is telling us what he remembers to be true.

I think the questions raised here, not just mine, about his memories are valid and should be expected. It is the Paracast after all. Questions will always be asked!

Sorry! I meant that you weren't around that part of Canada back in the day. My feelings aren't hurt at all... I'm just at a loss to explain the way it was. Ask away though, it helps to question stuff that you take for granted. Also the not talking about it was very common. My parents split when I was very young and it was a taboo subject, even hard for my mom to discuss today.

For example by the time I was 10 or 11 I would routinely take off in canoes down the river with my friends (no parents around) and camp out for the weekend by ourselves. Couldn't imagine letting my kids do that today. Different time.

I was raised by a single mother and by the time I was 10 I was the "man of the house" and would be asked by men in authority what should be done for the family -- much the the annoyance of my strong willed mother.

 

[Schuyler]

This may not be relevant, so apologies in advance. I'm not saying I don't believe ANYTHING this guy had to say. But these days I often cannot tell the difference between dreams and reality. OK. Let's see if I can get through this. This usually surrounds a very traumatic event that happened to me about 15 years ago. My wife committed suicide and her body was never found. She jumped off a bridge and was, apparently, swept out to sea. She left me with a 12 year old daughter to raise and the next few years were full of some anxiety. I had to wait seven years before I could have her declared legally dead and settle the estate, which was locked up in a trust account. Insurance and lawyers got involved and it was a real mess.

I have a recurring dream that she is back and that she really didn't die, but went up to Canada and taught school for years before deciding to return. In the dream, her existence is as real as my dog next to me. It's palpable. My mind tries to wrestle with the issue and I gradually come to realize that I have to deal with this new reality no matter how difficult or weird it will be and that, once again, the fallout is going to be traumatic.

I just have to re-emphasize: It is real, period. Then I wake up. It takes several minutes for me to re-orient and realize it was just a dream. I grasp at anything I can see in the bedroom, realizing that I AM in the new house, not the old one, that my daughter is now a grown and married woman, and that it has been years since all this happened.

I'm not claiming all experiencers are just having dreams. I'm just saying, based on my experience, that it is possible.

 

[dusty]

Thanks Gene, Dave, Budd and especially Doug for this show,

Fistly I find Doug's stories credible, and the fact that he felt up to speaking publicly,
openly and in such an honest manner says a lot I think, especially here, and on that point. He obviously has listened to the show for a while and I would assume he would have checked out the forums and would therefore be well aware of what the responses might be. Brave man and Respect to you Doug.

The missing photos could of course be due to something totally mundane, but after having had such a disturbing encounter it must have been very frightening to have lost the one thing that would prove this event happened, but unfortunate as that may be the man was there and what anyone else has to say is kind of irrelevant when compared to the internal and domestic torment this must have created.

A couple of times during the interview Doug mentioned that he really wasn't one for conspiracies and he came across like this is still the case. That very attitude tells me that that this guy sure as hell has his feet firmly planted on the ground. It must have been hard not to wind up in laa, laa land.

Having had that and other experiences, and finding out what he did from his mum must have rocked his world and his feelings about not wanting to delve any more deeply into his past through regression sounds like a sensible attitude, it also adds credibility imo.
The thing about him being kept from his parents doesn't actually surprise me , but I'm not going into that, and along with all the other stuff I am glad to hear that Doug is able to deal with it all.
I will listen again to this show and hope for Doug's sake all of this is behind him for good.

Great show, thanks again for getting this together and what an end to the year.

Peace,

Mark

 

[EQ42]

The thing about him being kept from his parents doesn't actually surprise me , but I'm not going into that

You know, I just thought of something. Maybe they thought he was being abused at home or something and that's why they wouldn't turn him over to his mother. They did have to put a cast on his leg. I'm not saying he was abused- just that they might have been freaked out by his injury and wanted to have someone investigate the situation at home. Perhaps they were unwilling to return him to his mother until they were satisfied it was a safe home environment.

 

[Gareth]

You know, I just thought of something. Maybe they thought he was being abused at home or something and that's why they wouldn't turn him over to his mother. They did have to put a cast on his leg. I'm not saying he was abused- just that they might have been freaked out by his injury and wanted to have someone investigate the situation at home. Perhaps they were unwilling to return him to his mother until they were satisfied it was a safe home environment.

I think thats a perfectly sound theory.

Things were done differently back then, and I could see that happening.

 

[dusty]

You know, I just thought of something. Maybe they thought he was being abused at home or something and that's why they wouldn't turn him over to his mother. They did have to put a cast on his leg. I'm not saying he was abused- just that they might have been freaked out by his injury and wanted to have someone investigate the situation at home. Perhaps they were unwilling to return him to his mother until they were satisfied it was a safe home environment.

Bingo !

Mark

 

[Hermes]

This may not be relevant, so apologies in advance. I'm not saying I don't believe ANYTHING this guy had to say. But these days I often cannot tell the difference between dreams and reality. OK. Let's see if I can get through this. This usually surrounds a very traumatic event that happened to me about 15 years ago. My wife committed suicide and her body was never found. She jumped off a bridge and was, apparently, swept out to sea. She left me with a 12 year old daughter to raise and the next few years were full of some anxiety. I had to wait seven years before I could have her declared legally dead and settle the estate, which was locked up in a trust account. Insurance and lawyers got involved and it was a real mess.

I have a recurring dream that she is back and that she really didn't die, but went up to Canada and taught school for years before deciding to return. In the dream, her existence is as real as my dog next to me. It's palpable. My mind tries to wrestle with the issue and I gradually come to realize that I have to deal with this new reality no matter how difficult or weird it will be and that, once again, the fallout is going to be traumatic.

I just have to re-emphasize: It is real, period. Then I wake up. It takes several minutes for me to re-orient and realize it was just a dream. I grasp at anything I can see in the bedroom, realizing that I AM in the new house, not the old one, that my daughter is now a grown and married woman, and that it has been years since all this happened.

I'm not claiming all experiencers are just having dreams. I'm just saying, based on my experience, that it is possible.

Hi, Schuyler. I think you're making an important point here regarding the dream state vs. waking consciousness, a point that in my opinion needs to be more carefully considered than it usually is, especially by people like myself who have experienced these kinds of conscious anomalies.

First of all, thank you for your openness about an event in your life that that must have been traumatic beyond the ability of many of us fully to imagine it. Trauma — both physical and psychological — can leave even the most mentally balanced person in a head space that is so unfamiliar that the very real event actually feels dreamlike. The flipside of this is also true of course: the process of the mind grappling to integrate such events can so invade our dream state that our dreams may sometimes seem every bit as real as waking consciousness. (I'm reminded that the German word for "dream" is "Traum" from which the word, "trauma," may actually come to us.)

In my case, whatever it was that I experienced as a child concerning apparently non-human beings (and this quite a number of times, by the way) was so strange beyond my ability to describe it well even today that it invaded my waking consciousness and my dreams back then — and to such a degree that I remain just as haunted by this series of events even today. I've therefore spent more than my share of time in my adult life trying to understand all of this over these past many years.

What happened certainly never felt like a dream — in fact, it always seemed so real that my normal life as a child appeared rather mundane in comparison. But could it have been a series of dreams? Possibly. And I must face this possibility, if I am to remain true to myself. Could this have been a byproduct of child sexual abuse and a child's mind struggling to integrate a trauma that it couldn't possibly comprehend in any linear fashion? Again, possibly.

I will tell you this (and then I'll shut up for now ): what this approximates more than anything else I've ever studied in my many years of struggling to solve this personal puzzle is "visionary experience," much like those visionary experiences that have sometimes been reported by mystics and shamans over the past many thousands of years. (And that may be why cave paintings and other kinds of visionary art reflect some images now familiar in UFO lore.) Experiencing this is like entering into another level of consciousness — one that feels completely and convincingly real, by the way — and one that I honestly wouldn't be a bit surprised one day to discover is a domain of reality every bit as "real" as "channel normal," the only domain of reality our culture can so far credit as "real." I think the "unconscious" IS real, Schuyler — just "real" in a different way than we're used to thinking of it, for "consciousness" cannot exist without the "unconscious" directly beneath it.

Anyway... Those are some of my thoughts at this stage of my journey.

 

[alzo]

With all due respect to Doug, I'm sure he believes everything he is saying, to him it's very real. He needs to look into Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE.) Several of his encounters point to this disease.

"Temporal lobe epilepsy - has often been linked to a variety of transcendent experiences: ecstatic communion with the divine, epiphanies of artistic creation, fearful encounters with alien beings"

I hope Doug finds some peace soon.

 

[EQ42]

With all due respect to Doug, I'm sure he believes everything he is saying, to him it's very real. He needs to look into Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE.) Several of his encounters point to this disease.

"Temporal lobe epilepsy - has often been linked to a variety of transcendent experiences: ecstatic communion with the divine, epiphanies of artistic creation, fearful encounters with alien beings"

I hope Doug finds some peace soon.

With all due respect, did you listen to the show? You remember the encounter at the beginning with four people in the car? So all four were experiencing TLE at the same time?

 

[alzo]

With all due respect, did you listen to the show? You remember the encounter at the beginning with four people in the car? So all four were experiencing TLE at the same time?

Yup I listened to the whole show... Doug's brother doesn't appear once as far as I recall we only hear Doug's recollection of the event. Doug's description of lights before encounters and the " Being at concert with the PA cranked but no music" all point to more of a brain malfunction than an abduction. As I said I believe he thinks it's all real.

 

[EQ42]

Yup I listened to the whole show... Doug's brother doesn't appear once as far as I recall we only hear Doug's recollection of the event. Doug's description of lights before encounters and the " Being at concert with the PA cranked but no music" all point to more of a brain malfunction than an abduction. As I said I believe he thinks it's all real.

You're saying Doug is sincere in his belief as to what happened but what happened is due to TLE. But if you think he's sincere the absence of his brother on the program should not effect your belief. Because the TLE would have nothing to do with the conversations he had with people after the seizures- conversations that confirmed the others with him had experienced the same thing. TLE does not explain the numerous conversations Doug has had with his brother (about the two up close sightings they both witnessed) after the fact. Or the conversation his wife had with his mother about the sighting in the desert- where she admitted to his mother it happened. Or the phone call they made to his parents after they got to the hotel. And his brother, separate from Doug, presumably discussed it with others as well (he took his roll of film to someone when he got back home to have it looked at). What would the absence of his brother on the program have to do with your theory that this was related to TLE- if you think Doug is being sincere. I think you would be better off just saying that you think Doug is delusional or is a hoaxer. Because if you think he's sincere I don't know how you account for the other people that he has talked with about the sightings after the fact.

 

[midwinter]

Another great show - thanks David and Gene!

I found Doug's accounts extremely engaging. There's no doubt that he believes what he's heard and that he's clearly had a traumatic life that he's trying to get together.

My only concern is that he is very knowledgeable about the subject (and, to a certain extent, why wouldn't he?). Some of the descriptions of the UFOs were quite convincing: particularly details like the silent vibrations caused by one of the approaching objects. I'm not that well-read in UFO case studies but are details like this commonplace or do Doug's bring anything new?

I was also aware that he used terms like "high strangeness" when recounting his folkloric family accounts. The stories were fabulous (especially about the mutilation) and very interesting. They do more than imply that there's something genetic going on. My real question is: has Doug read so much around the subject of his experiences that he's unconsciously integrated elements into his own personal testimony?

 

[skunkape]

I photographed multiple UFO's in '96 with a diposable Kodak camera. When I went to pick up the photos at Wal Mart I was told that the film was defective and none of the photos developed. I wonder how often this happens.
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[aNorthernSoul]

I really enjoyed this show. There is a certain sincerity in his voice that is quite refreshing to hear amongst those willing to discuss this stuff. To be honest though, my favourite part of the show was his discussion about the high strangeness older generations in his family had experienced. I too am from Western Canada and are quite familiar with Hutterite culture and know what he's talking about. From a personal standpoint though, my mothers parents moved here from the Ukraine and lived in a Ukrainian settlement in Northern Manitoba and share a lot of the same types of stories. I could almost hear my mother, my uncle and my Babba's voices when he said "It really happened. I was there!" when retelling someone's account of a strange experience. It would be cool to do a show or two looking deep into some of these old folk accounts of high strangeness in different cultures. I know Eerie Radio interviewed a gypsy once and it was very intriguing to hear about their belief set and some of the strange occurrences centered around his grandmother.

 

[cottonzway]

I really enjoyed this show. I found Doug to be sincere in what he was saying. Hopefully he joins us here as he reads the forums based off some of his comments.

That sucks about the film.

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

I agree with the sentiment articulated above: interviewing first hand, frontline experiencers and researchers truly leads to an engaging two hours (cf. Kiviat).

However, quite honestly, I have met people who claim to be experiencers who present more clear cut cases than Doug's. For example, my wife had a co-worker who claimed to be regularly abducted. This woman was inhouse legal counsel at a large investment bank -- so someone also in financial services like Doug evidently is/was. When I met her and broached the subject she was articulate and clear in her thinking, insofar as the phenomena permits you to be clear minded. Her husband was with her and credibly verified some odd occurrences (e.g., disappearances).

It would have been helpful if Budd had at least talked to Doug's brother or ex-wife; it didn't sound like he did. Maybe its me, but I wouldn't necessarily be fearful to recount a UFO sighting to someone like Budd over the phone (cf. your boss at work) in support of Doug's statements.

I was in Rye, New York during the Spring of 2005, right down the road from Old Greenwich, and heard nothing in the local media about a UFO sighting over the town center. Admittedly, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. This is Phil Imbrogno's neck of the woods -- maybe he recalls hearing something about this event. Perhaps someone who knows him can reach out.

As mentioned above, why does it seem that UFO photos always go missing? Here, you had a 20% chance to lose the roll with the photos and that was the one that was lost. I would have found it more credible if that roll had come out completely blank, like Doug's brother's four photos. Do photo developers have standing orders to seize UFO photos (a post above indicated a similar experience)? Are UFO inhabitants able to monitor developments on earth and affect how events play out real time?

Finally, does anyone know what proportion of alleged experiencers, or people in general, fail to go into hypnosis and recount events which are the focus of questioning? I have no idea, but when combined with some other odd circumstance surrounding this case, it seems odd.

I don't want to come across as too harsh, but again, this case is less than clear cut. Perhaps, as George Knapp stated in 'Hunt for the Skinwalker', the phenomena always seem to remain a step ahead.

 

[Vomitor]

I'm totally on what Tom here is saying. I gotta say that if doug was one of the first people that i heard talking about abdutions, then i probably would not look much further into the subject right away. I cant say i find him de facto credible at all...holes all over his story + the reluctance to want to find out what really happened. Though of course you cant blame him for being like this

But this isn't about him lying, sounding incredible or the fact that he isn't seeking promotion and therefore can not be lying...there can still be a number of reasons to speak out. In my opinion, to not sound debunking again, there is this phenomenon that can manipulate reality to those extreme degrees that you are so 100% certain it happened the way it did, even in groups of people. In cases of missing evidence like this, you gotta expect to at least hear it from more than one person involved to really start judging. If those peoples stories corroborate, then the next step would be backtracking the story to figure out why there are holes here and there to establish whether that story could even have ever physically happened. But so few cases will ever get to that point unfortunately...but that doesnt mean i dont appreciate guys like doug standing up telling his story, i really do - So thanks doug

There is a bigger question in my opinion that ive been thinking about lately...what the hell happens to the rest of the world when people have some of these more extreme experiences. Does time stop for the rest of us and another reality take over or what, and we just never - or rarely ,notice?

 

[owlman]

Now, I don't know Doug from Adam, but he sounds credible enough ,and why even bother adding the fact that photos were taken, and then subsequently 'lost' , into the story at all, if it would only cause more controversy ..?
Surely, if the whole thing was BS, then he'd have been better leaving that part out of his story, perhaps not even mentioning that photos were taken at all.
The fact that there were 4 fucking witnesses is what gets my attention.

 

[Jeff Crowell]

I typically don't give two turds to abductee/contactee experiences, but the discussion with and about Doug caused me to reconsider. I found his demeanor particularly convincing in that he would mention small details, very casually during his descriptions. A common sign of lying, as any cop can tell you, is the person will give too much detail and emphasize that detail during their story. Though Doug had a lot of detail, most of it was secondary (such as the temperature of the day during his Vegas-Palm Springs encounter, the fact they were going to a disco bar during his '70's Victoria encounter, etc..) yet he didn't overly emphasize these bits and pieces. In the end, I believe Doug believes he has had a life time of abduction/UFO experiences.

I do tend to have a problem with people having life time UFO/Abduction experiences. In my humble opinion, every time a UFO 'appears' in our world/plane/dimension, it runs the risk of being seen by witnesses, many witnesses. If you have a person who's constantly being harassed by the occupants of such craft, wouldn't this imply a level of replicablity? Could we not put these individuals under surveillance in the hopes of catching an abduction as it occurs? This also brings up a lot of questions for me; what is the frequency of abduction? Are there clues that indicate an abduction is about to occur, and if so, how much warning can be gleaned from those clues, a week, day, or hour? How are the abductors monitoring their subjects? This is important since the abductors are clearly picking and choosing times to perform the abductions when the subjects are alone, isolated, perhaps even sleeping and at their most vulnerable. This indicates, strongly, that the subject is under intense surveillance, quite possibly all the time. How is this surveillance accomplished without tell-tale clues it's going on (cameras, microphones, implants, etc...)? Lots of questions there.

Additional problems I have with Doug's account in particular has to do with the convenient cop-outs such as the film going missing, the reluctance of the other witnesses to talk of their encounters, and so on. These cop-outs leave us back with one, single, anecdotal event. I am open to the possibility that these cop-outs are nothing more than situational or bits of bad luck, but with no evidence and no backup from the witnesses. Now this is assumptive on my part, admittedly, and a question for Doug and Mr. Hopkins; Have any of the other witnesses been interviewed, extensively, for the sole purpose of corroborating Doug's encounters? Considering the importance of Doug's experiences, I would think a bit more (gentle) pressure would be put on all witnesses involved to backup the claims and get more data.

On an interesting side note, I went to Google maps and traced the route from Vegas to Palm Springs CA, and noticed that the route passes right by the Mojave National Preserve. Depending on how fast they were traveling, Doug and crew would probably be pretty close to the reserve (leaving at 3 AM, encounter UFO around 9 AM) at the time of their encounter. Going back to the high-strangeness of the Skin Walker ranch and the possible link with Native Americans there, could there be a correlation?

My 2 cents.

J.