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Whitley Strieber's next book


You seem to think it has to be aliens, yet there has never been anything conclusive to prove that. Without true evidence that is conclusive, I have trouble buying the fact that these people were abducted by extra terrestrials.

No Angelo, I don't think necessarily the abductors are ETs. But the phenomenon is real all right, and physically intrusive, from my lifelong personal experience. I don't know what the phenomenon is but I know what it's not - sleep paralysis, hypnagogic states or any of that brainless, ignorant tosh.

Some hypotheses fit the data closely, but at the moment we just don't know for sure. If it wasn't happening to me, and if I'd not spent so much time listening to the testimony of others about how it's intruded into their lives, and looking at their near-identical bodily scars and bruising (you see the same patterns again and again) I'd be skeptical as hell, and frankly don't blame anyone who is. The idea of abductions is so far off the screen of consensus reality it's crazy, and calls for incredulity as a first response. You probably know that virtually all the better known investigators now with some public profile as a result of their work with the issue inititally thought the whole idea crazy - including John Mack and David Jacobs. I mean, what sensible person, grounded in the rigor of academia, would give it credence?

But unfortunately, it seems to be real. I wish it wasn't.

---------- Post added at 06:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------

When proof will be provided though, I'll gladly change my tune.

Healthy attitude. In your case, I believe it.
 
No Angelo, I don't think necessarily the abductors are ETs. But the phenomenon is real all right, and physically intrusive, from my lifelong personal experience. I don't know what the phenomenon is but I know what it's not - sleep paralysis, hypnagogic states or any of that brainless, ignorant tosh.

Some hypotheses fit the data closely, but at the moment we just don't know for sure. If it wasn't happening to me, and if I'd not spent so much time listening to the testimony of others about how it's intruded into their lives, and looking at their near-identical bodily scars and bruising (you see the same patterns again and again) I'd be skeptical as hell, and frankly don't blame anyone who is. The idea of abductions is so far off the screen of consensus reality it's crazy, and calls for incredulity as a first response. You probably know that virtually all the better known investigators now with some public profile as a result of their work with the issue inititally thought the whole idea crazy - including John Mack and David Jacobs. I mean, what sensible person, grounded in the rigor of academia, would give it credence?

But unfortunately, it seems to be real. I wish it wasn't.

---------- Post added at 06:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:51 PM ----------



Healthy attitude. In your case, I believe it.

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt Archie, I appreciate it.

Although I am extremely skeptical of many of the extra terrestrial theories regarding the subject, and am also not ignorant enough to think that sleep paralysis, hypnagogic states, etc account for everything. However, I would not call them brainless, ignorant tosh. They are valid explanations for the vast majority of "alien abduction" cases. There are a lot of people that are skeptical about the subject but know very little about it. I consider myself relatively knowledgeable though. I've also had sleep paralysis and I know exactly what it feels like, and it's astoundingly the same. I had an episode the other night and saw lots of weird things. My wife, who was awake at the time and saw me freaking out, saw nothing except her stupid husband that woke her up.

There are some that they (sleep paralysis, etc) don't explain, like the Walton case, but as time has gone on, I've begun to think that case was an elaborate hoax - just my opinion and I will not state that as fact, so don't shoot me for thinking that. I've read a lot about that case, much of that info provided by other forum members, and I remain unconvinced.
 
the Walton case, but as time has gone on, I've begun to think that case was an elaborate hoax - just my opinion and I will not state that as fact, so don't shoot me for thinking that. I've read a lot about that case, much of that info provided by other forum members, and I remain unconvinced.

I presume you've not met Travis, nor spent significant time with him? If you had, I doubt you could hold to the hoax idea. No chance, IMO.
 
I presume you've not met Travis, nor spent significant time with him? If you had, I doubt you could hold to the hoax idea. No chance, IMO.

No I have never met him. Once you get to know someone, it makes it harder to think they are lying that's for sure. Only he knows for sure what happened to him and if he is telling the truth or not.
 
No I have never met him. Once you get to know someone, it makes it harder to think they are lying that's for sure. Only he knows for sure what happened to him and if he is telling the truth or not.

Don't you think it odd that the six other witnesses all testified to the same thing and that in 35 years, not one has changed a single detail? Some of them didn't even like each other, and one in particular had a real enmity with Travis and disliked him intensely. What is supposed to be the point of this purposeless hoax, with no pay-off for any of the witnesses and only trouble and ridicule as a consequence - not to mention being accused of, and almost charged with, murder?
 
Don't you think it odd that the six other witnesses all testified to the same thing and that in 35 years, not one has changed a single detail? Some of them didn't even like each other, and one in particular had a real enmity with Travis and disliked him intensely. What is supposed to be the point of this purposeless hoax, with no pay-off for any of the witnesses and only trouble and ridicule as a consequence - not to mention being accused of, and almost charged with, murder?

Considering that Walton got a book deal and a movie deal and we're discussing him right now, he did get some fame out of it. I do admit that them keeping it together all these years is impressive.
Again, I don't know what happened to him or if it is a hoax, I just think that aliens coming from another planet to abduct him is hard to believe. The Bigfoot hoaxers were able to keep the fact that their famous film was hoax for a long time as well. Again, this is just my opinion. I don't know him and it didn't happen to me. I can be completely wrong and he was in fact abducted by aliens and everything he saw while he was missing is true.
 
Considering that Walton got a book deal and a movie deal and we're discussing him right now, he did get some fame out of it. I do admit that them keeping it together all these years is impressive.
Again, I don't know what happened to him or if it is a hoax, I just think that aliens coming from another planet to abduct him is hard to believe. The Bigfoot hoaxers were able to keep the fact that their famous film was hoax for a long time as well. Again, this is just my opinion. I don't know him and it didn't happen to me. I can be completely wrong and he was in fact abducted by aliens and everything he saw while he was missing is true.

In an odd way, I find Walton believable. His interviews sound sincere and he hasn't embellished the hell out of it all in the intervening years. What he described in the following months is what he describes today. Also, if one of the alleged witnesses came forward and torpedoed his ass, they could make some fast cash. The consistency and structure of the narrative and background has been fairly static over the years with no witnesses blowing him out of the water...

He's made some money and was the only guy (iirc) to earn the National Enquirer UFO reward back in the 70s. Since then, he's been interviewed and gone on game-shows. If we subtract this experience from his life, there's little or no denying the fact that he has profited from it. He's probably the most famous working class logger the world has seen and he owes it all to what did, or didn't happen out there. Who can blame him for making a buck if it did happen?

Although I don't dismiss his account, one thing particularly bugs me a little. His brother phoned NUFORC (Bob Gribble) just a day before Walton returned. His tone didn't seem concurrent with a person under suspicion of murder or a man who's brother had been shot and taken by an unknown light source. I can only speak for myself here...if my brother disappeared under similar circumstances I wouldn't be ringing a UFO hotline and having a calm conversation.
 
This is a classic

I just think that aliens coming from another planet to abduct him is hard to believe.

Your absolutely right, why would aliens come all that way to abduct him..................

But seriously from what hat do you pull this fact from ?, the account as i read it appears to be a random encounter

The statement you make is correct in its logic, but the spin thats then applied to the walton case doesnt actually fit the account.
This is a classic debunkers trick, to put a spin on a case that makes it look absurd, but has no real basis in the facts of the case.

I dont for a minute read from the case that aliens from another planet came here to abduct walton.

I come away with a being in the wrong place at the wrong time scenario, when i read the account

---------- Post added at 10:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 AM ----------

I've never seen a valid frame of reference for predicting the motivations of higher or alien intelligences. Even amongst human populations, individuals at opposite ends of the Bell curve for smarts tend to think very differently. I doubt a conversation between someone like myself and Niels Bohr would last very long lol.

On the other hand, wherever DNA is found in nature, it always seems to compete with itself and often in ways that make no cognitive sense to the individual.

What if the most basic currency of value in the universe is encoded information? The most complex encoded information of which we know is found in DNA. It's not impossible to imagine that the most valuable variety of that on Earth might be the ordered complexity found in the brains of higher species.


I agree, Once you research matter and have the answers, the mechanics of matter, the really interesting stuff thats left is DNA and the almost limitless variables it can manifest as.
How many stars in this galaxy ? estimates go towards 100 billion, but at the end of the day the mechanics of them is all pretty much the same.
The expression of DNA however on just this planet alone is so diverse, we havent even catalogued it all yet.
To me its logical that DNA would be the most interesting thing in the universe, its the difference between a stamp collection where only one particular stamp is collected, and a collection of stamps from all over the world, clearly the second example is the more interesting one.
DNA is a product, the biosphere a factory, and its expression is based on not just the local environment, but also the specific gravity, and even solar radiation put out by the systems star.
Our own experience mirrors this premise

Darwin was recommended for the Beagle voyage by his botany professor and friend John Henslow from Cambridge University. Henslow played another crucial role in ensuring the success of the world-trip by receiving and caring for the huge numbers of plants, animals, rocks and fossils which Darwin collected over the next five years. The samples were dispatched home by Darwin in large trunks, which Henslow carefully unpacked.

The plants were prepared by Henslow as herbarium sheets since they were a gift to himself from Darwin. Henslow distributed the rest of this splendid scientific collection amongst his colleagues. The plants now make up a unique scientific and historic element in the University Herbarium at Cambridge. Altogether, there are about 2,700 plants from the voyage, and Henslow arranged them on about 950 herbarium sheets. You can look at images of all of them here.
http://www.darwinsbeagleplants.org/Darwin/Home.aspx

---------- Post added at 10:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 AM ----------

Or it could just be what could amount to a simple academic/scientific exercise. Humanity has pursued various bizarre avenues of research throughout history, some fruitful and some not. We could be laboratory animals used for any number of purposes for that matter. Or it could be some as yet not understood function of the human condition.

If you accept that human beings are most likely not the highest things in the food chain and that other beings with a different neurological makeup might operate outside of our normal perception, there are numerous nightmare scenarios you could entertain.

The main question in my mind is can we trust the message that is communicated through the accounts of the abductees? If you assume that they are indeed in contact with Others, can anything be taken at face value?

There does seem to be an element of deliberate deception in the UFO scenario, finding out the why is diffucult for that very reason.
For example accounts often refer to the doomsday message, images of the earth exploding etc etc, but that might be a warning, or an explanation, or itself a deception
 
If you accept that human beings are most likely not the highest things in the food chain and that other beings with a different neurological makeup might operate outside of our normal perception, there are numerous nightmare scenarios you could entertain.

The main question in my mind is can we trust the message that is communicated through the accounts of the abductees? If you assume that they are indeed in contact with Others, can anything be taken at face value?

I think this is a case of seeing spiders in the inkblot, which seems to be a keystone psychological trait with us monkeys. And perhaps part of the problem with this subject matter, in contemplating encounters with beings/phenemenon that are presently orbiting outside our frame of reference (both perceptually and culturally). ...Consequently, all any attempts to interpret the motives of extra/ultra terrestrials will ultimately fail for they will have to conform to our expectations and projections. ...And perhaps, since humanity seems content to evolve in a manner that according to some perspectives appears way out of whack with deeper Kosmic principles, in the sense that our external/material/technolgical development is far surpassing our interior levels of growth -well, this could be partly responsible for our failure to wrap our heads around the issue. To put it simply, this issue represents a similar divide that exists in competing schools of psychology at the present moment (Transpersonal and Developmental). At this point, in having to lean on the present limitations of Western scientific methodology, this particular problem appears to represent a door we are trying to open with a shoehorn.
 

I just think that aliens coming from another planet to abduct him is hard to believe.

That the whole phenomenon is "hard to believe" is a serious understatement. It's completely crazy, so far outside our consensus reality (John Mack's phrase I believe, and a good one) that the understandable reaction on first acquaintance is to dismiss it out of hand as utterly ridiculous. Nevertheless it seems to be occurring, and is persistent and consistent in character and content. Whatever debunking or dismissive explanations are offered up in order to keep us in our comfortable smug complacency that it can's exist, such explanations fail to address the data and the phenomenon remains stubbornly what it is and has always been.

---------- Post added at 06:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:12 AM ----------

Considering that Walton got a book deal and a movie deal and we're discussing him right now, he did get some fame out of it.

Travis didn't write his book for 10 years after the incident, and when he did it was chiefly to address the controversy stirred up by arch-debunker Philip Klass. Tracy Torme's film script was also not proposed until several years following the incident, and the film was made again 10 years later. Neither made any money for Travis.

I know him. He's quiet, down-to-Earth, completely uninterested in any kind of celebrity, totally honest and with the kind of utterly trustworthy integrity you sometimes find in people from his blue-collar background in a small provincial town. Snowflake is so quiet and sleepy it's completely shut down by 21.00 every evening, and not much livelier in the daytime. This is where he continues to live and has brought up his family. He never talks about the incident to his children, grandchildren or neighbors. He lives a very, very quiet life and has always worked at the local paper mill. This is not the kind of man who would be inclined, or able to, perpetrate an elaborate hoax with six other people (to an international audience) who all then had to keep the story straight for decades, long after they lost all regular contact with each other. You probably know they all passed at least two polygraph tests each (one logger's results the first time were "inconclusive" but he passed the second one).

To claim such people, and the Allagash Four, to be liars and hoaxers on the strength of no evidence, when you have not even bothered to meet them in person, is unfortunately, Angelo, a sign of the hardline, ideological debunker-mindset - the kind of mentality Budd Hopkins addresses so effectively in his newly published article "Deconstructiong the Debunkers":

http://www.alienjigsaw.com/Articles/DeconstructingDebunkers.html

Think of the implications, please, of engaging in character assassination on flimsy or no evidence, simply because your ideological world view is threatened. Healthy skepticism, as Hopkins points out, is a completely different attitude of mind and in fact essential when dealing with these far-outside-our-normal-paradigm phenomena. To say something like:

"Well what all those guys reported is really far out, but they seem to be honest enough and it all checks out, so maybe it happened. I remain unconvinced, but open-minded"

would be honest, respectful and reasonable. To name someone as a liar and a hoaxer for personal ideological reasons, or worse (as for example in Rainey's case) when you know better and are lying yourself for reasons of personal vindictiveness to get back at an ex-spouse, is deeply reprehensible and worthy only of contempt.
 
There does seem to be an element of deliberate deception in the UFO scenario, finding out the why is diffucult for that very reason. For example accounts often refer to the doomsday message, images of the earth exploding etc etc, but that might be a warning, or an explanation, or itself a deception

It's the imagery used in Clockwork Orange during the brainwashing scene for Pete's sake! The message is about human behavior as well. "Be nice to one another and don't make a mess where you eat.", is what it all distills down into in my estimation.

If superior intelligences were mucking about with us in some attempt to bring us along they are going about it back-asswards. Rather than inducing psychological terror and mucking about with DNA (allegedly) they should be helping us elevate human suffering and to solve real world problems. Repeating the message "Do unto others" is unnecessary and ineffective. Before you can "preach" to people or attempt to instill some behavioral parameters on them you have to "help them" first. More human injustice and inhumanity is perpetrated not from some ignorance of what is "right" but a submission to what is perceived as "necessary" through need. People don't steal bread because they don't know any better, they steal bread because they are hungry and that extends to a great deal of human nastiness. The idea that they are going to turn on some divine benevolent behavior gene in human beings and the species is suddenly going to start acting different seems incredibly unrealistic and some form of wish fulfillment.
 
Think of the implications, please, of engaging in character assassination on flimsy or no evidence, simply because your ideological world view is threatened. Healthy skepticism, as Hopkins points out, is a completely different attitude of mind and in fact essential when dealing with these far-outside-our-normal-paradigm phenomena. To say something like:

"Well what all those guys reported is really far out, but they seem to be honest enough and it all checks out, so maybe it happened. I remain unconvinced, but open-minded"

would be honest, respectful and reasonable. To name someone as a liar and a hoaxer for personal ideological reasons, or worse (as for example in Rainey's case) when you know better and are lying yourself for reasons of personal vindictiveness to get back at an ex-spouse, is deeply reprehensible and worthy only of contempt.

Archie, in recent posts on this subject, you've been like Jeckyll and Hyde. Prior to the the 'abduction' debate, your posts have been pleasant and thoughtful. Since then, on this subject, you've attacked anyone who's expressed a difference of opinion. 'Mentally ill,' 'lying through their teeth,' 'arrogant' and 'vindictive' are examples that spring to mind. They are emotive and inflammatory...'character assassinations.'

From my quiet corner of the internet, it appears to be the same tactics used by 'debunkers' to dismiss people with claims of UFO sightings. It's attacking the player and not the ball.

The above quote caught my attention because it defines your recent posts. It's been edited considerably since this morning and I should have responded then. Hypocrisy is an unpleasant charge to level at someone's posts that I've previously respected. Nevertheless, it's possible that when the dust has settled you'll regret the tone of these few posts.

Before you respond to this post, read it through again. It isn't an attack or comment on you. It's only an objective, calm comment on some of the posts you have made.
 
Archie, I seem to have angered you and a few others with my opinion on this. I find claims of alien abductions are extremely hard to believe, I can't change that opinion for now. I used to think it was possible, but now I don't. If you want to call me a debunker, that's fine, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not here to attack anyone, and I am just stating my opinion - that's it. If you know that I am wrong about it, there's no reason it should bother you, or anyone that thinks they have been abducted. I am definitely NOT lying to myself about my opinion - I do not think extra terrestrials are abducting anyone. Was Walton abducted by someone? That's it totally possible. Was it aliens? I don't think so, at least not aliens from another planet.

You don't have to agree with me, but you also don't need to try and make me out to be "the bad guy" in this discussion. I'm entitled to my opinion as well, having read a lot about the cases and having experienced certain things (like sleep paralysis) that can account for the vast majority of "alien abductions." And before you say it, I know that Walton wasn't sleeping. If what he says happened is true, then a group did take him, I just doubt it was extra terrestrials.

Thanks.
 
Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt Archie, I appreciate it.

Although I am extremely skeptical of many of the extra terrestrial theories regarding the subject, and am also not ignorant enough to think that sleep paralysis, hypnagogic states, etc account for everything. However, I would not call them brainless, ignorant tosh. They are valid explanations for the vast majority of "alien abduction" cases. There are a lot of people that are skeptical about the subject but know very little about it. I consider myself relatively knowledgeable though. I've also had sleep paralysis and I know exactly what it feels like, and it's astoundingly the same. I had an episode the other night and saw lots of weird things. My wife, who was awake at the time and saw me freaking out, saw nothing except her stupid husband that woke her up.

There are some that they (sleep paralysis, etc) don't explain, like the Walton case, but as time has gone on, I've begun to think that case was an elaborate hoax - just my opinion and I will not state that as fact, so don't shoot me for thinking that. I've read a lot about that case, much of that info provided by other forum members, and I remain unconvinced.

Sleep paralysis is not something I've had to deal with much. But there was one time I remember well from my childhood that I think might have been a case of it and just a few days ago it might have happened again...but I'm not sure. The reason I'm not sure is because I don't think I had my eyes open so I don't know if it was a waking or partly awake hallucination or a dream that scared me so much it ended up waking me. But in the dream/hallucination, whatever it was, I was lying down and there was a mist or smoke all around me, pressing in especially on my head (Almost like there were arms in the smoke and they were messing with my head for whatever reason). It felt extremely evil to me and I was struggling to move but couldn't at all. After what seemed a good 20-30 seconds or so I finally was able to wake up and open my eyes and move. My first reaction was, "Damn, that was a scary dream." But after I thought about it for a moment I wondered if I hadn't just had a brush with the sleep paralysis thing I hear about all the time.
 
Sleep paralysis is not something I've had to deal with much. But there was one time I remember well from my childhood that I think might have been a case of it and just a few days ago it might have happened again...but I'm not sure.

SP is a real pain in the ass (no pun). I've had the experience many times since my teens. Some few have involved the sensation that something dangerous is in the room. Of that small number, some have involved the perception of figures nearby. Most of them have involved a sensation of being disconnected and unable to snap out of it. There's a sort of feeling that's similar to floating on a tide, but mostly unpleasant.

Despite being aware that it's just SP, while it's happening there's often an emotional reaction. The more extreme experiences result in waking up with a heart-rate racing and being literally drenched in sweat to the extent that it is running off and soaking the bed. On the bright side, it can be like facing the worst thing imaginable and stepping up to kick its ass.

Some people like to attribute it to aliens or demons. That's BS in my opinion. A quiet life and reasonable sleep pattern stops it happening. If folk prefer to believe in demons and all-powerful aliens...why can they be thwarted by a regular sleep pattern?
 
It's the imagery used in Clockwork Orange during the brainwashing scene for Pete's sake! The message is about human behavior as well. "Be nice to one another and don't make a mess where you eat.", is what it all distills down into in my estimation.

If superior intelligences were mucking about with us in some attempt to bring us along they are going about it back-asswards. Rather than inducing psychological terror and mucking about with DNA (allegedly) they should be helping us elevate human suffering and to solve real world problems. Repeating the message "Do unto others" is unnecessary and ineffective. Before you can "preach" to people or attempt to instill some behavioral parameters on them you have to "help them" first. More human injustice and inhumanity is perpetrated not from some ignorance of what is "right" but a submission to what is perceived as "necessary" through need. People don't steal bread because they don't know any better, they steal bread because they are hungry and that extends to a great deal of human nastiness. The idea that they are going to turn on some divine benevolent behavior gene in human beings and the species is suddenly going to start acting different seems incredibly unrealistic and some form of wish fulfillment.

While I agree with your sentiment in theory, consider that change (especially that which could be defined as psychological in nature) doesn't appear to necessarily unfold without a certain degree of anxiety, discomfort and in many cases, outright trauma. Consider our tendency to disregard that percentage of the populace whom is claiming benevolent contact, i.e. the Contactee populace whom gets labled as misguided fanatics prone to fantasy and pathology.... I'd say, we've put ourselves in a bit of a box when it comes to being open to addressing fundamental change. Perhaps we're being approached in the only way we'll understand.
 
Mine seemed to lessen in my late thirties and early forties. Don't know why but it's true. I did have a light experience not long ago but it didn't get as far as it has in the past. I honestly don't know what causes it.

---------- Post added at 10:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:09 PM ----------

I'd say, we've put ourselves in a bit of a box when it comes to being open to addressing fundamental change.

Your are right. We have a new mythos in the late 20 and early 21 centuray. Our new priest are the pop scientist and the talking heads we see on t.v. We have emerged from the swamp of superstion (rightfully so) but have lost our sense of spirit or attunement to nature and the universe. I'll hush now before I sound like a new age space cadet which is not my intention.
 
While I agree with your sentiment in theory, consider that change (especially that which could be defined as psychological in nature) doesn't appear to necessarily unfold without a certain degree of anxiety, discomfort and in many cases, outright trauma.

That sounds like like many alien abduction accounts.

Consider our tendency to disregard that percentage of the populace whom is claiming benevolent contact, i.e. the Contactee populace whom gets labled as misguided fanatics prone to fantasy and pathology.... I'd say, we've put ourselves in a bit of a box when it comes to being open to addressing fundamental change. Perhaps we're being approached in the only way we'll understand.

That can change. There are several public abductees who have transitioned from being victims to participants.

Perhaps we're being approached in the only way we'll understand.

I just find that incredibly hard to believe. It doesn't make sense to me. Supposedly advanced civilizations and cultures incapable of interfacing with their lesser equipped cousins in a clear an understandable manner?
 


That the whole phenomenon is "hard to believe" is a serious understatement. It's completely crazy, so far outside our consensus reality (John Mack's phrase I believe, and a good one) that the understandable reaction on first acquaintance is to dismiss it out of hand as utterly ridiculous. Nevertheless it seems to be occurring, and is persistent and consistent in character and content. Whatever debunking or dismissive explanations are offered up in order to keep us in our comfortable smug complacency that it can's exist, such explanations fail to address the data and the phenomenon remains stubbornly what it is and has always been.

Travis didn't write his book for 10 years after the incident, and when he did it was chiefly to address the controversy stirred up by arch-debunker Philip Klass. Tracy Torme's film script was also not proposed until several years following the incident, and the film was made again 10 years later. Neither made any money for Travis.

I know him. He's quiet, down-to-Earth, completely uninterested in any kind of celebrity, totally honest and with the kind of utterly trustworthy integrity you sometimes find in people from his blue-collar background in a small provincial town. Snowflake is so quiet and sleepy it's completely shut down by 21.00 every evening, and not much livelier in the daytime. This is where he continues to live and has brought up his family. He never talks about the incident to his children, grandchildren or neighbors. He lives a very, very quiet life and has always worked at the local paper mill. This is not the kind of man who would be inclined, or able to, perpetrate an elaborate hoax with six other people (to an international audience) who all then had to keep the story straight for decades, long after they lost all regular contact with each other. You probably know they all passed at least two polygraph tests each (one logger's results the first time were "inconclusive" but he passed the second one).

To claim such people, and the Allagash Four, to be liars and hoaxers on the strength of no evidence, when you have not even bothered to meet them in person, is unfortunately, Angelo, a sign of the hardline, ideological debunker-mindset - the kind of mentality Budd Hopkins addresses so effectively in his newly published article "Deconstructiong the Debunkers":

http://www.alienjigsaw.com/Articles/DeconstructingDebunkers.html

Think of the implications, please, of engaging in character assassination on flimsy or no evidence, simply because your ideological world view is threatened. Healthy skepticism, as Hopkins points out, is a completely different attitude of mind and in fact essential when dealing with these far-outside-our-normal-paradigm phenomena. To say something like:

"Well what all those guys reported is really far out, but they seem to be honest enough and it all checks out, so maybe it happened. I remain unconvinced, but open-minded"

would be honest, respectful and reasonable. To name someone as a liar and a hoaxer for personal ideological reasons, or worse (as for example in Rainey's case) when you know better and are lying yourself for reasons of personal vindictiveness to get back at an ex-spouse, is deeply reprehensible and worthy only of contempt.

I agree. When the evidence for dismissing any case of abduction or UFO sighting, et al, is more ridiculous than the the encounter itself, then i can see why people who have experienced any of the same would get frustrated enough to bite back at those types of explanations.
To say that Walton is a liar without any evidence to back it up or to throw in "well he might have owed money to a mobster" is just blatant character assassination and shows a lack of critical thinking. You don't have to believe him but surely it makes the accuser of such look a tad more foolish.
As for Kevin Randle, it seems that some people like him, some do not.

I agree that not all abduction claims have merit and some deserve the ridicule and scorn poured on them but there are a few good cases, most have been mentioned here previously. I think dismissing the phenomenon completely is foolish.
 
Sleep paralysis is not something I've had to deal with much. But there was one time I remember well from my childhood that I think might have been a case of it and just a few days ago it might have happened again...but I'm not sure. The reason I'm not sure is because I don't think I had my eyes open so I don't know if it was a waking or partly awake hallucination or a dream that scared me so much it ended up waking me. But in the dream/hallucination, whatever it was, I was lying down and there was a mist or smoke all around me, pressing in especially on my head (Almost like there were arms in the smoke and they were messing with my head for whatever reason). It felt extremely evil to me and I was struggling to move but couldn't at all. After what seemed a good 20-30 seconds or so I finally was able to wake up and open my eyes and move. My first reaction was, "Damn, that was a scary dream." But after I thought about it for a moment I wondered if I hadn't just had a brush with the sleep paralysis thing I hear about all the time.
It sounds a lot like sleep paralysis to me. It still happens to me on occasion, even though I don't have erratic hours or lead any kind of wild party life. I also know that there isn't anything external going on because my wife has been awake during a few of my episodes and she didn't see anything scary.

---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 PM ----------

When the evidence for dismissing any case of abduction or UFO sighting, et al, is more ridiculous than the the encounter itself,

When one of the possible solutions is visitors from another planet taking someone, I would say that no explanation is too far fetched. I don't see how Walton being taken by a group he owed money to or whatever is in any way more outlandish than aliens kidnapping him. I'm not saying that's what happened, but either is just as plausible as the other. In fact, I'd say with 100% certainty that gangsters of one type or another exist and abduct people, and there's proof that they do. We have no proof that aliens are taking people. To clarify, I am not trying to attack Walton's character in any way, all I am saying is that he could have been taken by a gang of HUMANS that he owed money to. It's a hypothetical statement - I have no proof, and I'm just throwing it out there as a possibility. If I'm called closed minded for throwing out the alien abduction theory, then I can call you close minded for throwing that theory out.

Seriously folks, I'm just throwing ideas out there. I am in no way trying to debunk the Walton case. I've said it before, but I doubt we'll ever know what happened. Who knows, Walton could have created an explanation in his mind that he thinks is true to cover a traumatic abduction by thugs - a psychological coping mechanism. He and his brother had an interest in UFOs (I know that from reading Clark's entry on the case in his encyclopedia), so his mind may have created this scenario to cope with it. Just a thought - not a fact, so don't jump down my throat for saying it.
 
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