I gotta say, after listening to this episode I would really like to hear a round-table with this group and the abduction researchers (Jacobs and Hopkins) because in listening to the doubts these three were voicing - in agreement - about the abduction phenomenon suppositions, I could distinctly hear Hopkins and Jacobs arguing their case with physical evidence.
I'm not angling to one side or the other, but I think there is sufficient evidence to support both sides of the argument....that being, the phenomenon is physical vs. the phenomenon is visionary....and I think it would be really interesting to hear a pragmatic discussion on both sides of the issue.
Tangentially, or not, here is a quote from one of Karla Turner's books, Taken, where she describes an abduction account that was seemingly hallucinatory,
"To complicate matters, many reports show that some interactions occur on a mental
rather than a physical level. One type is an artificially induced virtual-reality scenario (VRS),
an externally introduced event, that to the witness is practically indistinguishable from
objective reality. The person may experience a situation with full sensory input and react with
genuine physical and emotional responses, although in 'reality' the person may be lying
immobile on an exam table, or sitting attached to some alien apparatus, or even asleep in bed
with no outward sign of disturbance.
While the VRS may have been a matter of theory in the past, a possible explanation for some
of the more "unacceptable" abduction accounts, it has now been confirmed in a three-witness,
conscious event. It came to light when I was investigating the abduction experiences of Ted
Rice, a psychic of excellent reputation throughout the southern states.
Ted witnessed a virtual-reality scenario when he was in Florida visiting a friend, Marie, along
with another house guest, Amelia. The two women occupied twin beds in one room, and
Ted slept down the hall in another. Not long after going to bed one night during his visit, he
was awakened by Marie shouting for him to "come quickly!"
Heading down the hall, Ted saw a pervasive blue glow emanating from the other bedroom
doorway. Entering, he found Marie pressed against the far wall, staring at the twin beds in shock.
And he saw where the blue light was coming from. Amelia lay immobile in one bed,
surrounded by a huge, blue, glowing, "electrical" sphere of light. Her eyes were open, and she
didn't seem to be in any distress as she carried on a conversation with someone Ted
and Marie couldn't see. Terrified, they tried to talk to her, but they could hardly hear one
another even when shouting. Amelia continued to speak within the sphere for several
minutes, until the blue light suddenly disappeared, at which point she was finally free of the
paralysis that had kept her in the bed.
Amelia told Ted and Marie that the experience started with the loud sound of a helicopter low
over the house. When she opened her eyes she could see through the ceiling and roof, as if
they'd disappeared, to where the helicopter was hovering just above the house. She described
two entities in the craft, whom she said also appeared at the foot of the bed before the blue
light vanished. One being was tall, with greenish skin, an egg-shaped head, and slanted
eyes as the only visible facial features. The other, shorter, entity, Amelia said, was blue-black in
color.
Ted and Marie had seen absolutely nothing of these creatures, nor had they heard a
helicopter at any time. But they had seen the sphere of light, with brighter, darting lights
shooting through it, and Amelia frozen in a slightly raised position inside it, for she had been
starting to sit up when the light coalesced and paralyzed her.
Amelia's perception of the experience was completely "real" for her. She was conscious
when it began and throughout the entire event, as Ted and Marie attested. From everything
her sensory input told her, Amelia had experienced an actual event with the craft and entities.
Virtual reality. And the conscious and unaffected witnesses, Ted and Marie, observed
objectively real effects of the mechanism which manipulated the event, verifying its external
origin. VRS technology exists and is in use, this much is clear. And unless there are
outside witnesses, such as in this rare instance, the experiencer cannot personally
discern between a VRS and an actual event. The virtual-reality scenario may occur
while the person is conscious, as in Amelia's case, or it may be introduced into the
person's dream state. According to those who've experienced the VRS dream-and I
am one of those, as will be discussed later-it is an intrusive event that suddenly
interrupts a normal dream. The experiencer is aware of a total, abrupt change in
consciousness and finds himself in an event altogether different from his dream."
