News

Reediciones Anómalas of Barcelona is publishing Abducidos, a Spanish translation of Dr. John Mack’s Abduction, in June 2019. This was Mack’s first of two books about alien encounters.

• Abducidos – ReedicionesAnomalas.com
• Abducidos – Amazon.es

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JANUARY 1, 2019 – On New Year’s morning, the documentary filmmakers sent out a long-awaited special announcement to their subscribers:

Happy New Year from Ariel Phenomenon! What a year we’ve had! The film is completed, mixed and mastered. It is looking absolutely beautiful, and sounding great. We are so honored to have had the chance to give this incredible archival footage, and this unique story, the attention it deserves. We have found a wonderful composer (whose work can be heard in the recent film Fault in Our Stars, among others) to create some original music; meanwhile, we are beginning to screen it for potential distributors. This fall we released our newest 2-minute trailer on our website! Those who have seen the film are incredibly excited about its quality and are helping get it in front of the right people. We just can’t wait to share it with you all as soon as possible! As we approach the 25th anniversary of the event (coming up this September), we are wishing you the happiest of 2019! Sending our thanks and appreciation to you, our supporters. The Ariel Phenomenon Team Randall, Rebecca, Anne, Chris & Rikk (and many other helpers and volunteers!)

1Center of Taiwan is publishing a Chinese translation of Dr. John Mack’s Passport to the Cosmos in January 2019. This was Mack’s second book about alien encounters, and was his final word on the subject.

• 宇宙通行證 – 1Center.com

The question on the front cover asks, “The communication between aliens and the human race – is it purely terror, or the spreading of wisdom?”

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SEPTEMBER 2017 – New “teaser” poster revealed:

Learn more about the documentary film that is being produced by String Theory Film in cooperation with the John E. Mack Institute by clicking here to see JEMI’s project information, or by clicking here to visit the film’s website.

AUGUST 2017 – A new trailer for the documentary has been released along with a statement from the filmmaker:

Randy Nickerson, Filmmaker, String Theory Films Now with seeing somewhat the light of day on this extensive project, it brings me back to the beginning when I first received the BetaCam footage from the Dr John Mack family members. After seeing this footage, I could understand what Mack saw in the testimony of these children and the events around the Ariel School sightings. That was in 2007. This film was supposed to be just a DVD project with John Mack’s material for online sales but I had so many questions that his interviews did not answer. That began the quest to find the school in 2008. I was told it had burnt down, that it no longer existed, and then I found the name of the reporter who helped out John Mack in 1994. She informed me the school was still there and so were some of the original teachers. I booked the flight to South Africa within days. Landed in Johannesburg, South Africa and was shuttled to where I was staying. There was an armed guard with an M4 in front of the 12 foot wall that surrounded the building. I was definitely not in Kansas anymore. Went into Zimbabwe a week later with a reporter with warnings from our US State Department not to do so. Zimbabwe was in civil unrest due to the elections and the dictatorships actions against its own people. People were starving. It left an impression on me that changed me fundamentally. To be in Zimbabwe covering a story and there being another big story happening at the same time, was overwhelming. I stayed in a shack about 7 miles from the Ariel school with no electricity, no hot water. I had to charge batteries and do everything from generator power when it was running. It was a humbling and I had to buck up and face the music in ways that I was not prepared for. Seeing the school for the first time was a moment I will never forget and meeting the teachers and those that were there in 1994 was fascinating. The school and the Head Mistress were so gracious and accommodating given the circumstances that they were under. The Headmistress shared with me photos, drawings, and the story of the 1994 incident. My question was “ Do you really believe it happened?” Her and the 2 other teachers I spoke with and interviewed were convinced that it did. I walked the playground for days and the site where the witnesses said this silver disc was. I met with parents of the some of the children and people from Ruwa that also witnessed unusual things in the sky the day before. A paramedic who met with some of the children who were traumatized after the event. It became more and more apparent that there was an incredible story here. I noticed on a tiled brick wall and on the walkway were the names of the children that attended Ariel School in 1994. That was the moment when I said to myself, I can find them. I didn’t know how but I was determined to do it. A woman in Johannesburg helped me set up a Facebook page. It was the advent of Facebook and social media that made it possible to find these now adult kids. It was in 2008 that I interviewed the first witness who was in grade 7 in 1994.It began a long journey of tracking people down.It was not my intention to be an investigative reporter but that is what I had to become in order to tell this story. Locating the BBC reporter who was first on scene was a big moment. I had been looking for him for years and when I heard from him, out of the blue, I flew to England to interview him. He had kept everything from covering that event in 94. Every piece of video and even his paper scratch notes, I found other reporters and investigators had done the same thing. Whatever happened there was important enough for people to make a special place in their homes to save everything from that time. I would find that these children were scattered all across the globe now due to the situation in Zimbabwe. Funds were an issue and the credits will be filled with so many people who helped me. Getting to these kids was difficult. It took time, lots of effort and I was learning how to make a feature documentary all at the same time. It was gorilla film making at its core. I had made several short films with the longest being 18 minutes but a feature documentary was an entirely different animal. The further I went and the more I found out about this story, the more I was convinced that this had to be a done properly no matter what. There is so much more to this story, John Mack’s story, and the whole issue of life outside this planet. As I get closer to the end of this film I can finally start to talk about the journey and all the things I have kept close to the chest for so long. I look forward to that time and it is near. Thank God! It is indeed time to tell the story and bring the facts around this event to screen.

January 23, 2016 – Dal vincitore del Premio Pulitzer, un libro che esplora a fondo le conseguenze fisiche e psicologiche dei rapimenti alieni e rivoluziona la visione tradizionale del ruolo dell’uomo nell’universo: Passaporto per il Cosmo, John E. Mack, M.D.

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September 3, 2015 — We are sadly overdue in honoring John Mack’s friend and colleague, renowned educator Richmond Mayo-Smith, who died at the age of 92 in Boston on January 10th, 2015. Ever the thoughtful teacher, Richmond wrote some thoughts that were shared at his own memorial service.

“Life is more beautiful than I ever imagined.
Life on earth is a school.
Don’t be confused by what you have been taught,
rather close your eyes and listen deeply to your
inner resonance. There you come to know what is
true. Everyone must be courageous to follow a
deeper calling than societies’ prescription.
I am no longer worried, for I now see a deeper
truth.”

Richmond’s complete remarks are available here (click for pdf, 4 pages)

We can do little more at this moment than say that Richmond was among the wisest people who John knew.

Those of us who met Richmond through John’s work would all say that it was a privilege and honor.

For our Italian readers, an announcement regarding the first-ever Italian translation of Passport to the Cosmos by John E. Mack, M.D..

Coming in January 2016: Dr. John Mack’s book, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters, in Italian!

Venexia Editrice says: “It is with great pleasure that Venexia presents a new series of books devoted to ufology. Many of our readers have asked us to explain this choice, as most know our publishing house for its selection of texts about esotericism and spirituality rather than for other topics. Here’s a quick response.

The mysteries of the universe are endless. We don’t know what may be occurring; if there may exist extraterrestrial beings who inhabit our galaxy, creatures who may dwell in a multiverse, entities who may be close to us yet whom our senses prevent us from perceiving, or who knows what else. All we can be sure of at this time is that something is going on that is at once psychic, mythical, imaginary and tangible. Too many people have had experiences with unfamiliar beings for the phenomenon of UFOs to be ignored and – most importantly from our perspective – all are transformed with the certitude that the way we interpret the world is limited, if not downright harmful to life on Earth.

Venexia is happy to offer its readers important books that deal with these topics, such as Passport to the Cosmos by John E. Mack, a Harvard psychiatry professor, Pulitzer Prize-winner and highest authority on the phenomenon of abductions by alien beings. In all these books, the personal experiences and professional research lead towards a renewed sense of the sacred and of reverence for nature that can make us reflect upon, and be delighted by, possibilities of extraordinary beauty.”

• Venexia Editrice (click here)
• Amazon.it (click here)

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February 1, 2015 – The Ariel Phenomenon website has been launched by String Theory Films – ArielPhenomenon.com – and a trailer has been released, offering the first-ever look at this definitive documentary about the Ariel School sighting.

Donations in support of the film may be made directly to String Theory Films on their website.

All decisions regarding any additional interviews with former Ariel School students or other last-minute production additions are being made at the discretion of the filmmakers; the John E. Mack Institute trusts their judgement and encourages your support. Ariel Phenomenon will be released this year (2015).

Producer Randall Nickerson says, “This film has been a labor of love for many years. There has never been a lack of effort or time; it’s just been a struggle to get the production funded. Nevertheless, we’re close to completion and it will be done this year. This will be the definitive documentary on this incident and will introduce a new audience to John Mack’s heartfelt approach to the subject. Most importantly, it will give a voice to all those who experienced something profound. This is the final push and we could use any help possible.

November 2014 — The revised edition of Abduction, Dr. John Mack’s first book on the subject of alien encounters, is now available as an ebook from major retailers. A trade paperback will be released in late December or early January the first or second quarter of 2015.

Abduction was originally published on April 20, 1994. Though Abduction has remained in print for twenty years this is the first time since 1997 that the author’s revised edition has been available. There are subtle changes in the phrasing of many sentences throughout. More significantly, “in order to improve the book’s readability,” Dr. Mack wrote, “the historical and cross-cultural sections have been moved to the back, and the opening sections that contain my introduction and first reactions to learning about the abduction phenomenon have been streamlined.”

Abduction was the first of two books the acclaimed Harvard professor of psychiatry would write on the subject of “human transformation and alien encounters”.

Dr. Mack, who died in September 2004 at the age of 74, spent most of his illustrious career examining how a sense of “connection” develops across cultures and between individuals, and how these connections alter people’s worldviews. His best known book on this theme was the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Prince of Our Disorder, a biography of British officer T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”).

His interest in the “connection” that was reported between humans and aliens, and how that too transformed people’s worldviews, was an unexpected — if natural — continuation of his lifelong exploration of this theme.

Though largely a collection of case studies, less philosophically-oriented than Passport to the Cosmos (published several years later), Abduction began Dr. Mack’s consideration of the possibility that the relationship between humans and the so-called aliens may have benefits for both species, rather than being purely exploitative of humans as many at the time believed.

Publisher’s Weekly noted, “Where Mack’s report differs is in its emphasis on the purported spiritual aspects of the abduction experience. Many of his patients reported deep personal growth and heightened awareness of human destructiveness and of Earth’s ecological crisis. Some abductees seemed to relive past lives during therapy sessions; others became open to contact with spirit-entities; still others said they possessed a ‘dual identity’ as both alien and human. Unlike Hopkins and Jacobs, who tend to view such phenomena with skepticism … Mack wishfully embraces them as signs that a higher intelligence is attempting to intervene in humanities destructive course. Whether that intelligence involves extra-terrestrial humanoids or multidimensional spirits is a question Mack leaves open. His searching inquiry is among the most credible and thought-provoking of this genre.”

This return to print of Dr. Mack’s preferred edition of Abduction has been made possible by the John E. Mack Archives working hand-in-hand with Simon & Schuster. To prepare this version, the pages of a rare 1997 trade paperback were torn from its binding and scanned. Errors were manually corrected and the book was newly typeset. The preface, which had already been revised in 1995, has been further expanded by ten new paragraphs written in February 1997, sourced from the archives. All earlier editions of Abduction are now retired.

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A commemorative edition of Passport to the Cosmos remains available from White Crow Publishing. This edition includes illustrations and photographs. Insights about the relationship between spiritual and physical energy; trauma’s role in transformation; information about the ecological crisis facing the planet; the possibility that human beings are participating in the creation of some sort of interdimensional hybrid race; and the expansion of human consciousness and our spiritual reawakening are the matters this book includes. More than a sequel to Abduction, this is Dr. Mack’s definitive statement on alien encounters and the state of humanity.

November 17, 2014 – Ariel Phenomenon documentary producer Randall Nickerson talked with Martin Willis of Podcast UFO about the 1994 Ariel School sighting and how the now-adult former students feel about the encounter today. This is Randall’s first live interview since he began his research. Aired 2014-10-01.

Click here to listen at PodcastUFO.com

May 7, 2014 — Actor and novelist William Shatner told Larry King (on Larry King Now, April 23, 2014) that he is writing a science fiction novel inspired in part by the research of the late Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack.

Shatner told King, “[Mack’s] conclusion was UFOs are on another plane, another reality… So do UFOs exist? It depends on what you mean by ‘exist’!”

Shatner had recently learned about Mack’s research from a discussion with producer Denise David Williams, who is developing a motion picture based on the career of Dr. John Mack.

Dr. Mack’s explorations of his patients’ alien encounters earned him the scorn of his Harvard peers, and the admiration of thousands of “experiencers”.

Shatner’s fiction will not be able to do more than skim the edges of Mack’s own story since Mack’s Life Story Rights are held by producer Williams. See her website at JohnMackMovie.com.

September 10, 2013 — The John E. Mack Institute (JEMI) is pleased to have offered guidance during the development of the Xperiencers television program. Our year-long affiliation with the production has concluded. As the program moves into production without our collaboration we wish it well. We’d particularly like to thank the co-producer with whom we worked most, who has since left the production, for her efforts to bring a refined tone to the program.

We believe there is much to be learned from extraordinary experiences; the experiences commonly referred to as “alien encounters” seem to reveal opportunities for humanity to expand beyond its current precarious state of affairs in bold and dramatic ways – opportunities that many (including the late Dr. John Mack) have feared we will fail to take. Presenting material of such import with the respect and sensitivity it deserves is an exceptionally difficult prospect, and one that we cannot yet say if this program, absent our collaboration, will achieve.

For updates on the program, please visit X Marks the Spot’s Xperiencers.com.

At midnight on Thursday, May 9th, 2013, VANITY FAIR posts its online feature article about Harvard Psychiatry Professor and Pulitzer Prize-winner, Dr. John Mack, written by NY Times investigative journalist Ralph Blumenthal.

• Read Blumenthal’s article on VanityFair.com

The article recounts Dr. Mack’s defense of alien abductees and the personal and academic price he paid for it.

Leslie Keane, New York Times bestselling author, says “Ralph Blumenthal has written an intelligent and insightful story; the best treatment on John Mack I have ever read.”

It is also the first public announcement of a partnership between Denise David Williams’ MakeMagic Productions and Robert Redford’s Wildwood Enterprises for the production of a major motion picture based on Dr. Mack’s extraordinary story.

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Errata

1. The Vanity Fair article initially describes “Elisabeth and Mark Before and After Death: The Power of a Field of Love” as an unpublished manuscript (“He left behind another unpublished manuscript, with another mystery he was seeking to unravel, a secret as dark as death itself”), before later correctly identifying this as a book proposal, not a manuscript. The materials for this project in actuality consist of a dozen-page single-spaced outline (the book proposal) and many interviews Dr. Mack conducted with friends and family of the late Dr. Elisabeth Targ.

 

2. The article fails to examine the Donna Bassett incident critically. The article presents her as a “Boston writer” who later told Time magazine that she “was a double agent out to expose Mack’s U.F.O. cult” through her “hoax”.
        However, neither Vanity Fair nor Time magazine presented any evidence that she was an undercover writer as she claimed. Materials from Mack’s archives (excerpted below) were provided to the writer of the Vanity Fair piece that suggest her motives were personal.
        The most damaging claim that she brought to Time magazine – as Time reporter James Willwerth credulously accepted and reported – was of a “lack of therapy following [the] traumatic hypnosis sessions”.
        But it seems that Bassett had in fact been advised to seek regular therapy, and took offense at the way in which the advice was presented, and may have been disappointed that Dr. Mack himself was not the resource to which she was being directed.
        A colleague of Dr. Mack’s explained that at a meeting with Ed Bassett and Donna Bassett, “I felt over my head and asked if it would be helpful to her to see a psychologist regularly who has an understanding of the phenomenon. This was exactly the wrong thing to say. She felt I was calling her crazy and that I was abandoning her just when she’d started to open up to me.”
        In March of 1994 she made her claim to Willwerth that she was an undercover writer whose false persona had not been directed into the therapy she felt she would have needed had her persona been real.

 

3. The concluding paragraph of the Vanity Fair article misrepresents a possible after-life communication from Dr. Mack. “It’s not what we thought”, is the message he is said to have related. The Vanity Fair article implies this was about alien encounters. The message was shared with his former assistant Roberta Colasanti by a psychic. Colasanti would like to clarify that “It’s not what we thought” was in regards to our sense of what death is. It was the second of two messages that two different psychics told her were being directed to her from the late Dr. Mack on the subject of life-after-life.

October 12, 2012 – The John E. Mack Institute (JEMI) is pleased to announce an alignment between a television production company and JEMI for the creation of a television series that will explore the meaning of alien encounter experiences via open-minded interviews with experiencers.

The board of JEMI believes the proposed series, currently in development under the title “Xperiencers”, is in line with the research Dr. Mack conducted under the PEER project at JEMI (the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research) in the 1990s and early ’00s; the series will continue his efforts to give voice to the diversity of men and women whose lives have been affected by extraordinary experiences.

An excerpt from the Xperiencers.com’s website: An unspoken bond is shared between “experiencers” (those who have had extraordinary experiences with apparently alien beings). Sometimes when experiencers are brought together, there is an unexplained sense of recognition, and insights about their experiences flow more freely than when they are isolated from one another. Therefore, our intention is to bring experiencers together and to record their insights. Each person may have a piece of a larger puzzle that, when assembled, could present a more complete picture of this phenomenon. Our team members themselves have lived through extraordinary experiences. Each has been propelled by the initial shockwave to question their life goals, religious beliefs, relationships, and even their own sanity. We remember the late Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, who felt that once we learn to move past the fear, these encounters can be the most amazing events a human can experience. Our Xperiencers Team understands how it feels to be labeled “crazy” as perspectives shift and personalities transform. Having set down safely on the other side of this difficult process, our team is able to listen with empathy and understanding to others who are now going through, or have gone through, the same transformation. We are not psychiatrists or therapists. Our goal is simply to amass the best insights from men and women around the world who have experienced these paradoxically invasive and enlightening events. It is our hope that each participant may feel some peace and release from having been able to share their most valuable insight with us. We make no judgement about whether these events are caused by “aliens” in any sense of the word. We only know that these events are real to those who experience them, and we hope that together, in connection with one another, we may come closer to the truth.

More info to come as the series takes shape.

Visit X Marks the Spot’s Xperiencers.com for additional information.

Disclaimer: The John E. Mack Institute’s association with X Marks the Spot Entertainment is limited to branding related to the production of the Xperiencers television series; JEMI is not responsible for and does not necessarily endorse the opinions or activities of X Marks the Spot Entertainment personnel.

February 1, 2012 — The Mack family asked us to share this news:

We are excited to announce that after a four year negotiation, the Life Rights to the incredible true story of Harvard Psychiatry professor and Pulitzer prize-winning author, Dr. John Mack, have been granted to MakeMagic Productions for major motion picture development.

August 21, 2011 – Budd Hopkins has died.

On January 10, 1990, Budd Hopkins inscribed these words to John Mack, then a nascent inquirer into the subject of alien encounters:

“For John, with every good wish to a future – I hope – colleague.”

Today, Sunday August 21, 2011, we remember a pioneer of the alien encounter phenomenon, with every good wish in return.

Budd Hopkins, June 15, 1931 – August 21, 2011.

Link to statement on Hopkins’ site:
Statement from Leslie Kean

January 15, 2011

In “The Priests of High Strangeness”, an essay by Carol Rainey published in the premiere issue of Paratopia (Jan 2011), the author asserts that “The sensational cases published in [Budd] Hopkins’ Intruders and Witnessed, in [David] Jacobs’ Secret Life and The Threat… are not the norm for abduction experiences.”

She suggests that Hopkins, her husband of ten years, was too easily lured by stories that bear little resemblance to typical alien encounters. The cloak and dagger story of Linda Cortile, allegedly abducted from her New York apartment on a beam of light in full view of a United Nations ambassador, is one of several cases which she notes Hopkins promoted even as discrediting evidence piled up. An allegation that David Jacobs’ objectivity has been compromised by paranoia is also referenced.

We thought some may wonder whether this article discredits experiencers and alien encounter experiences in general. We do not feel that it is meant to.

Rather, it is a criticism of researchers being lured by their own expectations of what the alien encounter experience is, and what sort of cases promise “proof” — when the reality could be that the nature of alien encounters is far stranger than one may expect, and may by its very nature not be able to provide a familiar kind of proof.

Click here for PDF of Carol Rainey essay | Alternate link

Addendum: Discussion born of this essay has included statements from one of Hopkins’ earliest interview subjects, Deb Kauble (“Kathie Davis” in Hopkins’ book Intruders). She asserts the reality of what happened to her, while emphasizing the need not to use terms or definitions that assume we know the nature of the experiences, contesting (for example) the use of the term “spaceship” (“I saw something. I don’t know what it was”) and, sharing her disdain for the term “abduction” (a term which Dr. Mack tried to de-emphasize in his later work).

Jeremy Vaeni describes the discussion underway now as the “deconstruction” of “what we claimed to know” in a new essay titled “Reflections on 2 Journeys: Where Do We Go From Here?”. While Vaeni at times goes too far the essay (he offhandly tries to dismiss the theme of sexual/reproductive elements of the encounters for no given reason other than the implication that Deb Kauble may have stated her case differently), it is well worth reading for its central point.

Read Jeremy Vaeni essay as archived on archive.org

December 10, 2010

Nuance of meaning retained with newly invented word

Recently an Italian website, www.altrogiornale.org, contacted the John E. Mack Institute for permission to translate some of Dr. John Mack’s articles. With consent from the John E. Mack Archives LLC, permission was granted.

We asked what word they would use for “experiencer”.

“Experiencer” is, after all, a sort of invented word in English, which Dr. Mack popularized when he applied it to people who have reported experiences that appear to be “alien encounters” but for which another explanation may exist. It has become an important word in the lexicon of alien encounter research, so needed some careful attention.

“Experiencer” is a deliberately vague term meaning “one who has experienced something”, which in its vagueness allows for many possible interpretations of what exactly may be the nature of the experiences. That same vagueness needed to be retained in any translated form.

We asked a librarian what resources existed for getting the finer sense of word meanings in Italian, and she turned us to this site, http://www.woxikon.com/english-italian/experience.php , which suggested that “esperienza” can carry the meanings of knowledge / mental sensation / skill. Sounded about right, and the word was a good sound-alike.

So we initially proposed “esperienzer” (esperienza with an “er” substituted at the end), without knowing if adding an “er” to the end of a word in Italian turns something into a noun like it does in English. (As in “one who travels” becoming “traveler”.) The translator replied that “esperienzanti” may be what we were seeking. (As anticipated, Italian does not place an “er” at the end.)

“‘Esperienzanti’ is like ‘those who are experiencing something’“, he wrote. “I think this word does not exist,” he noted, “but I like the idea. I can use it.”

Later discussions and feedback from dual-language speakers led us to a final decision in which we’ve opted for a term that suggests “one who experiences a particular state”:

“Experiencers” and “experiencer” in Italian will henceforth be:
“esperienti” (plural),
“esperiente” (singular)
…at least in articles by the late Dr. John Mack. We hope it catches on.

• Visit the Italian version of www.experiencers.com at:
  www.esperienti.com

A similar effort is underway for French translations.The translation of “Experiencer” into French was much easier. An existing, though rarely-used, term with nearly the same meaning was easily chosen – experienceur – and a corresponding website launched.

• Visit the French version of www.experiencers.com at:
  www.experienceurs.com

We are always looking for volunteers to translate more articles. Please contact us if you’d like to translate even a single article.

Update: American-based Italian researcher Paola Harris confirmed that there has not yet been an Italian term for “experiencer” invented yet, so we are truly pioneering the use of this new term. Harris added that a word similar to the English word “contactee” is most often used in alien encounter literature — “Contattisti, or Contattati …mostly Contattisti”.

This feedback affirmed, for us, the need for a new word. “Contactee” carries the implication that a person has been contacted by an outside agency, and that is the sort of pre-loading of meaning that the term “experiencer” is meant to avoid. By being more broad, “experiencer” allows for many interpretations.

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An interesting historical note: The neutrality “experiencer” was designed to possess has instead developed into a positive emphasis, even as it retains as an open question what the experiences are. As it is typically applied to those who believe they can learn something of value from their experiences, or who may feel there is an element of cooperation or active participation in the experiences, a factional dispute arose with those who prefer to identify themselves as “victims” or “abductees”. Those who disagree with the more positive ideas or possibilities may resent “experiencers” for failing to validate their sense of victimization. This dispute is ironic in light of the fact that “experiencers” also report “abductions”; they simply do not define themselves by that particular experience.

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RELATED NOTE: Foreign publishers interested in translating Dr. Mack’s book Passport to the Cosmos, please contact us.

December 20, 2009

The current board of the John E. Mack Institute acknowledge the passing of a former board member, Sandra Wright, whom many of us knew as a friend.

We honor her dedication to, in her words, “assist global man to better understand the various routes available to enlightenment”.

Sandra helped promote this shift through her involvement with many organizations including the Friends of the Institute of Noetic Science, through which she became aware of Dr. John Mack’s work.

Sandra became a key board member of our organization and a powerful supporter of Dr. Mack’s PEER program, the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research. “The true calling,” she said of the organization, “is PEER and its related studies, research and message. Simple, direct, and earth shaking in its import.”

With her participation, PEER was for many years our best-known project, helping to recast the subject of alien encounters from a matter treated with frivolity, if not derision, to a matter recognized as inherently transformative to man’s very sense of identity and responsibility.

Sandra saw that interaction with other sentient life, as reported to Dr. Mack by countless individuals, broadened perspectives and acted as a prompt for the evolution of consciousness. “We are only just beginning to touch the subjects of UFO’s/ETI and ‘Higher Mind’,” she noted. “There is a vital connection amongst these subjects.” she asserted; a sentiment that we continue to share today.

Sandra was most recently active at JEMI in supporting a documentary film (underway now) of the historic 1994 Ariel School sighting — an event in which sixty children reported seeing a landed UFO and “strange beings” during morning recess — and had established a matching grant challenge to help encourage donations from the public.

We feel tremendous respect for her openness, receptivity and commitment to help promote, through research and education, an evolution in consciousness that could lead to positive social change and the experience, for billions, of a better world.

Sandra S. Wright passed away on December 15, 2009 in McLean, Virginia, following a long and brave battle with cancer.

A link to Sandra Wright’s obituary in the New York Times

On June 4, 2005 at a confernece in Liverpool, Professor Chris French gave a presentation on the alien abduction study undertaken by him and his team at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

On this page we present:

• French’s abstract (from the soon-to-be-published paper);
• a comment from the John Mack Institute written in advance of French’s presenation;
• NEW: an update with an excerpt from French’s conclusions;
• a summary of French’s presentation by Nick Pope
• a response to Pope’s summary by Will Bueché of the John Mack Institute;
• NEW: an audio comment from John Mack (from the archives)

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Psychology and parapsychology of the alien contact experience
Christopher C. French, Julia Santomauro, Victoria Hamilton, Rachel Fox & Michael Thalbourne Goldsmiths College, University of London & University of Adelaide

Abstract — Recent systematic research has supported previous anecdotal observations that those reporting alleged alien contact (known as ‘experiencers’) report a much higher incidence of ostensibly paranormal experiences and higher levels of paranormal belief than those not claiming such contact. The results of a study of a UK-based sample of experiencers are presented. Specifically, the project focussed upon quantitative and qualitative data relating to postulated psychological differences between experiencers and non-experiencers (with respect to fantasy-proneness, dissociativity, sleep paralysis experiences, and history of paranormal/anomalous experiences). Furthermore, data were collected pertaining to susceptibility to false memories using a word list paradigm. Finally, data were collected relating to possible paranormal abilities (ESP and PK) in experiencers and a comparison control group. The implications of the results are discussed.

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Comment from the John E Mack Institute
(not part of the above):

Professor Chris French, Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (APRU) at Goldsmiths’ Psychology Department, stated in the original press release for this study that “Abductees report a wide range of experiences; the research project aims to test not only the psychological aspects of the abduction experience, but also to find out more about the other kinds of experiences that abductees report, and includes some tests for psychic abilities.”

That this study recognizes and seeks to understand these factors is a significant advancement in alien encounter research. In the past, other studies have approached these factors with disdain. A study at Harvard Medical School by Richard J. McNally a few years ago suggested that the range of extraordinary experiences reported by experiencers was evidence that such people were fantasy prone — rather than considering that extraordinary phenomena and alien encounters may be related.

French’s study may have taken us another step towards identifying what kind of people are more likely to perceive and recall alien encounters. However, since the existence of psychic phenomena is often considered to be as unlikely as alien encounters, this is unlikely to settle the debate about whether or not such encounters are real.

Professor French is editor of a UK quarterly titled “The Skeptic,” which may give some indication about how the information will be presented.

An earlier paper of French’s from 2002 begins “Many thousands of people around the world firmly believe that they have been abducted by alien beings and taken on board spaceships where they have been subjected to painful medical examination. Given that such accounts are almost certainly untrue, four areas of neuroscience are considered with respect to possible clues that may lead towards a fuller understanding of the alien abduction experience…” (emphasis added).

French’s website further opines “UFOs and alien abduction” and a range of other extraordinary experiences such as ESP “can be plausibly explained in non-paranormal terms.”

We hope to find out more about the presentation after June 4th.

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Update with Professor French’s Conclusions

A summary of French’s presentation was distributed in late June 2005 to select readers, however we cannot present the data until such time as the paper is accepted for publication. French’s conclusion reads as follows:

In general our results are consistent with those psychological models of the alien encounter experience that posit that such anomalous experiences may be a reflection of problems with reality monitoring (Johnson & Raye, 1981), that is, our ability to distinguish between events which take place out in the real world and those that occur only in our subjective mental space (via imagination, fantasy, dreams and so on). Modern theories of both hallucinations and false memories are often conceptualised in terms of problems with reality monitoring. Absorption, dissociativity and fantasy proneness have all been shown to be correlated with susceptibility to false memories (French, 2003). However, these results by no means prove that such explanations are correct. At least two other explanations of the psychological profile of experiencers would have to be ruled out first. The first is that a particular type of psychological profile is required if one is to be psychologically open to experiencing genuine paranormal and related phenomena (such as alien encounters), if indeed such phenomena genuinely exist. The second possibility is that the psychological profile that we see in the experiencers is a consequence of their experience and not a causal factor at all.

We would like to thank Professor French for including these possibilities (in the latter part of his conclusion). His honest analysis of the meaning of his hard data stands in marked contrast to the manner in which other researchers have presented their data. This forthrightness is the reason why even research by an avowed skeptic such as French can be of great value. The alternate possibilities French refers to seem to us at the John Mack Institute to be the possibilities that will someday be recognized as true.

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Summary of Preview Event by Nick Pope, and Response by JEMI
Summary provided to UFOUpdates list by Nick Pope; Reproduced here for informational purposes only.

From: Nick Pope
Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005
Subject: Chris French Abduction Study Results

I’ve posted previously on this List information relating to the scientific study into alien abductions conducted by Professor Chris French at Goldsmith College, University of London.

As previously notified, Professor French presented a paper on this at a conference in Liverpool on Saturday.

Chris forwarded me a copy of his paper, but asked me not to post it for now, as this might cause problems with subsequent publication in scientific journals. He did, however, say that I could post a summary of the paper. I’m wary of this, as I’m not a scientist, but I think I can safely say the following:

The study involved 19 abductees (8 male, 11 female) and a control group matched by age and gender. The study looked for postulated psychological differences between the two groups, for differences in susceptibility to false memories, and for differences in ESP and PK abilities.

Significant differences were found in areas such as tendency to hallucinate, absorption and dissociative tendencies.[1] The results were less clear on fantasy-proneness, while no significant differences were found on susceptibility to false memory.[2]

Greater incidence of sleep paralysis was found among the abductees, though it was acknowledged that this might be a symptom of, and not an explanation for, alien abduction.[3]

The tests on paranormal abilities did not appear to show any significant differences, though there was one apparent difference on the clairvoyance test, which I’m attempting to clarify.

Once the paper’s been published in scientific journals, I’ll post it to this List, provided Professor French is content.

Best wishes,

Nick Pope

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Response to Nick Pope’s Summary of Chris French’s Study Results
by Will Bueche, The John E. Mack Institute (JEMI)

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s when people thought about alien encounters, they imaged silver metallic saucers traveling across interstellar space and landing in the Mojave Desert in California. They imagined ambassadors from other worlds would contact mankind. That was more or less what the culture expected could happen. But it isn’t what happened. In fact, what people describe is far stranger.

What people are in fact experiencing today is not a straightforward visit from an alien who steps out from a silver saucer. Instead, people describe something a bit more surreal, involving the appearance of a bright light that either descends from the sky (or if one is indoors, light that fills the room yet seemingly comes from nowhere & everywhere), a sense that time is being distorted, the arrival of strange beings who pass directly through walls and communicate telepathically, and other exceptionally strange sensations of vibration, of being moved into an alien environment and later returned.

These strange descriptions, and the lack of any direct physical evidence (no alien artifacts), have led modern day researchers to consider the possibility that what people are describing may be more akin to a meeting of worlds or dimensions, rather than a visit from another planet. Something which by its very nature cannot leave traces, only memories.

Naturally, there is a predisposition in our culture to assume that an experience that leaves no physical evidence must be an illusion. Lacking any technology which can explore other realities (or even prove that other dimensions posited by physicists even exist, let alone contain life forms), research has turned to the minds of the experiencers themselves to see if their minds possess any particular qualities which might account for why they have perceived something which may seem, on the face of things, to be unreal.

Regrettably, those conducting this research have often carried an assumption into their work; an assumption that if any personality differences in experiencers are uncovered, that these differences may imply that their perceptions can be dismissed as illusions.

For example, most everyone who has looked at alien encounters notices a similarity between alien encounters and the natural illusions that occur in the states of consciousness that exist between waking and sleeping. Particularly, the sense that something vaguely threatening is in one’s room, and the sense that things are a bit odd. Often those who note this similarity do so because they believe that alien encounters are examples of these sleep related fantasies.

But there are also cultures who believe that altered states of consciousness – such as the states one cycles through when meditating – are conducive to the perception of other aspects of reality beyond the material world. A person meditating may experience what they describe as a connection with the spiritual world, but there’s no way to prove that such a world exists even if many people perceive it!

Nonetheless, because many people have perceived it (the sense that the world includes more than the physical plane), most every culture believes the world is a continuum of the physical and something else which theologians dubbed the spiritual, for lack of a better word. Today we wonder if it might be what physicists such as Michael Greene call other dimensions, but science still has a very long way to go to catch up with these theories.

The late Harvard psychiatrist Dr John Mack asked us to consider the possibility that alien encounters might be experiences in which something from beyond the material world is “crossing over” into our world, but which is not native to our reality and may therefore may require an altered state of consciousness to even perceive it.

Dr Remo Roth in Switzerland suggests that when the so-called aliens cross over into our world, they affect not only the physical environment (causing the odd lights and the feeling of vibration) but also affect the state of consciousness of the people to whom it is occurring. He suggests that people are being forced to perceive something which is normally beyond our range of perception.

When one looks at studies of the minds of experiencers, one needs to be mindful of the possibility that if there are character traits that are different from average, these differences may be qualities which have enabled these people to perceive and recall their experiences, rather than assume that these character traits somehow implies that their experiences are not real.

Here then are some brief comments in response to Nick Pope’s summary of Christopher French’s presentation:

[1] “Significant differences were found in areas such as tendency to hallucinate, absorption and dissociative tendencies.”

Regarding the “tendency to hallucinate,” we must be wary that the researcher may be defining every visual or auditory element related to alien encounters — such as bright light at the onset of an alien encounter, telepathic communication, associated experiences such as seeing auras around people, and the very sight of aliens themselves — as hallucinations.

Such a definition would lead to circular reasoning in which the researcher fulfills his own expectations (as in “I assume aliens are hallucinations, therefore anyone who tends to see aliens must have a tendency to hallucinate.”)

If on the other hand the researcher has found that the experiencers also report hallucinations of things which are known to be unreal (visits by Bugs Bunny, for instance), that will need to be studied further.

Less prone to the possibility of researcher bias is the part of the statement referring to a tendency towards “absorption and dissasociate tendencies.” That French has again found experiencers to score higher in this quality raises provocative questions.

Similar results have been found by researchers who believe that alien encounters may be real. A study of 40 experiencers and 40 control subjects conducted in the 1997 by John Mack’s organization PEER (but left unpublished) found that “experiencers show moderate dissociative capacities (lower than pathological norms) and high absorption.” PEER’s report explained the terms:

“Dissociation and absorption are two personality characteristics related to entering altered states. Dissociation is an ability to split off certain mental processes from the main body of consciousness with various degrees of autonomy. Absorption is a personality style which denotes the degree to which an individual’s attention can remain absorbed cognitively in sensory stimuli or daydreams. Thus, dissociation seems to mark an ability to enter altered states, while absorption seems to relate to an ability to maintain consciousness in that altered state.”

“Absorption,” although sounding as if it may be a term for some kind of frightening condition, is in fact not a reference to a character flaw at all. Rather, absorption is a person’s ability to enter into or become “one” with an experience; to fully engage an experience so that it is felt to be a living part of yourself. It is a quality associated with spiritual or meditational practices.

That experiencers score higher in this trait may again indicate that alien contact is a more intimate form of connection with another world than our culture may have expected.

Most psychiatrists believe that “dissociation”, the ability to disengage from or isolate one’s feelings or awareness of particular experiences, is a coping mechanism formed in response to having lived through events which were exceptionally traumatic.

That experiencers in French’s study were evidently more dissociative than average will likely not be seen as evidence that their reports of terrifying alien encounters, recurrent since childhood, may be accurate. Rather, we expect the report will suggest that experiencers’ dissociative tendencies may have been caused by a more convential form of trauma, such as undocumented childhood sexual abuse, and that the people later erroneously came to believe their dissociative tendencies could be explained by alien encounters. (The familiarity of this debate is realized in the new motion picture “The Mysterious Skin,” which features a character who believes he was abducted by aliens as a child when he was in fact sexually abused by his little league coach).

[2] “no significant differences were found on susceptibility to false memory.”

This may be a reference to a word-list experiment in which a group of thematically related words are presented to the subject, who is then asked (after a suitable period of distraction) to try to recall as many of the words as they can — and to also indicate how confident they are in their recollection. For example, a list might include words such as “sheets, pillow, comforter, blanket, teddy bear.” When this word-list experiment was conducted at Harvard Medical School a couple years ago by doctorial student Susan Clancy, she found that experiencers tended to have more errors, and to express a higher confidence in their erroneous answers. For example, the experiencers may have stated with confidence that the word “bed” was on the list, even though it was only the concept of “bed” and not the word itself which appeared in the list. This tendency was used by Clancy to suggest that experiencers were more prone to creating “false memories.” However, more established experts in memory dismissed the suggestion that rote recollection of word lists can be compared to the creation of experiential memories in real-life situations.

That the replication of this experiment has failed to detect what Clancy detected is puzzling; had the results matched, it would have further strengthened the possibility that people who report alien contact tend to process information conceptually rather than in words. These people may have a greater ability to perceive and later attempt to describe experiences which may exceed what language is designed for (the difficulty people have in describing in what reality alien encounters take place is a good example of where language breaks down).

[3] “Greater incidence of sleep paralysis was found among the abductees, though it was acknowledged that this might be a symptom of, and not an explanation for, alien abduction.”

Some suggest that alien encounter experiences are fantasies experienced during naturally occurring altered states of consciousness, such as those which transpire between sleep and wakefulness. During these hypnagogic or hypnopompic states the physiological process of sleep paralysis (a restriction of movement which our bodies enact during rest so as to prevent our limbs from reacting to illusory events in dreams) experienced in concert with hallucinations derived from imagination and cultural material, and perhaps accentuated by dreams, creates the impression in some people that an extraordinary event has taken place in reality.

Others suggest that naturally occurring altered states of consciousness, such as those which transpire between sleep and wakefulness, may facilitate perception of or contact with another aspect of reality—such as what in traditional theological terms is described as the “spiritual” world (see Sherwood, Simon J. “Relationship between the hypnagogic/hypnopompic states and reports of anomalous experiences” Journal of Parapsychology, The, June 2002).

While different states of consciousness are entered into purposefully by meditators, shamans, other spiritual practitioners, it should not be overlooked that everyday men and women also pass through different states of consciousness. A greater incidence of sleep paralysis among experiencers may indicate that they experience natural altered states of consciousness more frequently than average, or recall their altered states more acutely than average.

While a higher incendence of sleep paralysis among experiencers neither proves that the experience of alien contact is real, nor proves that it is fantasy, it may support the theory — held by both skeptics and believers of alien contact — that altered states of consciousness are involved in the alien encounter experience in some way.

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A Comment from John Mack: From the Archives

I think that the mind that has visions is very close to the mind that can have these experiences. [Even though] conventional psychological studies don’t distinguish abduction experiencers from other folks, there are differences. And one of them is this kind of openness to visionary experience. Either because people were already that way, or because the experiences opened them to a visionary kind of consciousness. A lot of times the experiences seem to begin in hypnagogic states, but that doesnt mean they are dream states, that would be a mistake [to assume that].
            — Dr John Mack at Oberlin College, 2001

Listen to the above remark spoken by Dr. John Mack at Oberlin College, 2001 (mp3)

April 12, 2005 – As a prolific writer, Dr. John Mack left behind many papers when he passed away – some widely read, others barely known outside of professional circles. One of the initiatives of the John E. Mack Institute is the archiving of his works.

We spoke with Will Bueche about this archiving effort, which has been underway for the past few months.

“The challenge we face,” Bueche explained, “is that most of these writings exist only on paper. The earliest are typewritten, and then much of the rest were written on computer systems which are no longer with us. Only a small amount of papers from more recent years exist as electronic documents.”

“So what I am engaged in is the process of scanning these physical papers through a professional scanning machine which simultaneously scans both the front and back of every page and is smart enough to figure out if there is writing on one or both sides, and then it turns that into a Adobe Acrobat portable document file, a pdf.”

“A pdf is the same sort of document that you get when you download a product brochure, for a new stereo for example. We’re preserving the look and feel of the original paper, we’re not simply reading the text. There is technology available that can attempt to discern the text, but it tends not to work very well – you need to proofread every line if you attempt that, and that would be millions of lines. It is easier to simply scan each paper as an image, as we are doing. This also enables us to capture handwritten notes, corrections scrawled in the margins for example. If you think of the scanner as a camera, essentially what we are doing is we are photographing every paper that John Mack ever wrote.”

Every paper?

“As many as we can; we have a time limitation in that these materials have to be packed up eventually. We have some months to work in, yet it still feels like a race simply because of the sheer volume. John’s papers were in three locations – the old PEER (Program for Extraordinary Experience Research) office, his home office, and his Cambridge Hospital office – and each would be a challenge unto itself.”

“Patricia Carr, John’s longtime associate from the department of psychiatry, kept many of John’s published papers carefully organized, so we’ve begun by scanning what she had already arranged in chronological order.”

“We started with the early 1960s – a few from the 1950s when he was getting his doctorate at Harvard – and we’ve nearly reached the 1990s.”

“But bear in mind I am referring only to his published papers. Once we’ve finished with his published papers, then we need to start again in the 1950s with his talks and some of his more notable exchanges of correspondence. The entire Harvard inquiry, for instance, produced reams of correspondence. I expect we may find some unpublished essays also. Even among the published works I am sometimes finding alternate drafts, which we are scanning as well.”

What sorts of essays are they?

“There are many papers about psychiatry of course, but his sense of what it was to be a psychiatrist was expansive. From his papers from the seventies and eightes, I am getting a much stronger sense about how politically active he was during the nuclear arms race, how active psychiatrists and doctors were in social causes. I’ve been scanning papers written when doctors were speaking out boldly in defense of the human race. You don’t see that so much anymore. It is an example we can learn from.”

“I’d also never read some of his earlier books, such as Vivienne, the one about a young girl’s suicide. As I look back on that era I’ve begun to really see how careful he was about gathering biographical material, a skill which infused all of his work even up through his research into the lives of alien encounter experiencers.”

“I’m beginning to appreciate why he won the Pulitzer in biography (for his book on T.E Lawrence); being a good biographer isn’t simply a matter of writing in an elegant style or telling a good story. Good biography, and good psychotherapy I expect, is about being meticulous in how you listen to another person, in how you attend to every nuance of what is being said to you. In this John was expert.”

Any chance that these materials may be published, or republished?

“That’s actually a question for the estate of John Mack [Note: later the John E. Mack Archives LLC], which is now responsible for his creative works. What we at JEMI [the John E. Mack Institute] are able to contribute to his legacy is an assurance that these materials will survive; I have every faith that John’s sons and ex-wife will explore options regarding how best to make them available. We are in constant communication, and they actually provided some of the equipment we needed to accomplish this task.”

“Personally I’d love to see a volume of his collected works, pulling together his best essays – both published and unpublished ones – but would any publisher opt for a book with sections ranging from T.E. Lawrence to alien encounters? You can imagine it may take some time to figure these sorts of practical questions, and you must factor in the simple truth that his family is still coming to terms with their loss. It may be some time before they will be able to look to the future.”

“But I am certainly acting with the faith that these writings will be preserved for future generations to look at and learn from, in some way. ”

We will revisit the progress of this initiative again, soon.

Update: August 26, 2005

The scanning effort is coming to an end this week, and so we caught up with Will Bueche for a final report.

How many papers did you ultimately scan?

“More than 10,000. I passed the 10,000 mark a couple weeks ago, and it is now hovering at about 10,200, with perhaps a few strays left to do. That includes correspondence in addition to essays, of course. These last few days I literally was scanning the last papers while furniture was being carried out around me, and the materials I’d scanned earlier were being carted off.”

And you also scanned in press coverage that Dr Mack had received?.

“I scanned about 900 newspaper and magazine clippings. The newspaper reviews of Prince of Our Disorder (his 1976 biography of T. E. Lawrence) made me sneeze, they were shedding so many paper particles. The last time they’d been taken out of storage was for the reprinted edition of Prince from Harvard University Press – but all they’d wanted them for was for critics’ blurbs. But in those reviews there was also a lot of quality discussion about the differing views of T. E.’s role in shaping the modern Middle East. So there is good cause to save them.”

“Did I already mention – I’ve always felt that the press coverage that Dr. Mack received when he came out with his opinions about alien contact was an invaluable portrait of how our culture felt about aliens at the time he made his case. In fact I’d begun scanning in the press clippings of that era even before the family of John Mack stepped in and made the full-scale archving effort possible.”

How was the scanning of press clippings different from scanning the essays and letters?

“The Mack family made it possible to scan in many essays quickly, using a scanner with a built-in paper feeder. But magazines or newspapers with illustrations required a great deal more care. First, I had to find the original materials, because most of the press clippings had been filed by Dr Mack’s office as photocopies, which tended to be muddy. Whenever I came across the original magazines and newspapers I patiently used a traditional flatbed scanner to create new high-quality scans (see illustration below). So, future researchers looking at this electronic archive will see the press clippings in full color and fully legible quality. I hope that’ll be nice for them!”

GRAPHIC: PHOTOCOPIES (ON LEFT) WERE REPLACED BY HIGH QUALITY SCANS (ON RIGHT) WHENEVER POSSIBLE

You mentioned future researchers – can you say what will be happening to this archive? Where will it be?

“I can’t say yet. I have some idea, but I can’t say yet because the estate is still in talks. I believe that Dr Mack’s published papers will be relatively easy for researchers to obtain, and possibly his drafts as well, but I am not sure what will be happening to the correspondence.”

“Obviously there is a great deal of scholarly interest in correspondence, particularly Dr Mack’s exchanges with various relatives and associates of T. E. Lawrence. I scanned every bit of it that I could find, including many Air Mail letters written on tissue-thin blue papers that were popular in the UK in the 1960s. Very difficult to scan blue paper by the way. But… there may be legal considerations that would affect whether that sort of material could become part of a library.”

“Letters are obviously a valuable part of history, and if you walk into any book shop you’ll see the collected letters of Freud or Jung or James, etc., but traditionally some history has to flow by before that becomes available to the public. In the future, letters serve as a portrait of an era. But if made available too soon, they lack perspective.”

“In fact we didn’t even scan the 10,000 letters that Dr Mack received from self-described ‘experiencers’ of alien contact. It is simply too current, too sensitive, to scan now.”

“What we did scan in – planning for the future – were the professional exchanges, the correspondence exchanged with colleagues. Opinions back and forth from Mack and his peers about whether alien encounters are real, and who was being most stubborn in defending their opinions. But again, those exchanges will likely have to be kept private for a generation or so.”

Update: January 2009

An additional set of documents were recently recovered by attorney Eric MacLeish, who defended Dr. John Mack from an unprecedented, 14-month long inquiry by the Harvard Medical School into Dr. Mack’s research into the alien encounter phenomenon in 1994 and 1995.

Three large boxes, containing in the range of 500 documents concerning this period of time, 350 of which were unique, were delivered by Mr. MacLeish to the Mack family, and were again scanned by Will Bueche.

Of particular interest was correspondence between the attorneys, which demonstrated a level of friction between the sides that could only have been imagined prior to receiving these documents. Also included were letters from Dr. Mack to his attorneys during the inquiry process.

Our thanks to MacLeish, and to the firms which retained these documents in storage rather than destroying them.

January 12, 2005 – The Kosmos Journal, created by the John E. Mack Institute’s own Dr. Nancy Roof, has been nominated for its excellence in Spiritual Coverage by the prestigious Utne Independent Press Awards!

As our United Nations NGO representative for more than fifteen years, Dr. Roof has been informing and inspiring participation in shaping our emerging global civilization through an integral approach that is based on the interdependence of all life.

Kosmos Journal is but a part of her team’s remarkable work.

Fostering “an integral approach to global awakening,” Dr Roof and her distinguished associates elevate and deepen discourse and dialogue on global affairs; explore new forms of global governance; deepen and strengthen the inner life and its interconnectedness to the whole; explore new forms of spirituality for a global era; deal with complexity through an Integral Worldview; enhance human solidarity through honoring cultural and developmental differences; and encourage the growth of an informed Global Civil Society.

No small goal, to be sure. But Dr. Roof’s infectious conviction that this can be done was in abundant evidence at the United Nations this past September at the launch of the World Culture Open. As the final speaker, Dr. Roof had the opportunity to introduce some basic principles of the integral approach. She declared:

“Humanity is on a great journey evolving along a trajectory towards wholeness. This journey takes the individual and the collective through many levels in the outer and inner worlds. Different political, economic and social arrangements are suited to each culture along the way. Kosmos supports a comprehensive integral approach to managing a complex world through designing solutions aligned with the natural evolutionary flow and creating enabling environments for change at the global level.

“[We] need to break down cultural boundaries based on fear that serve to alienate rather than embrace. Beyond the celebration of the diversity of cultures is the promise of a certain kind of art to soften boundaries that separate. Transformative art transcends cultural habits, differences and the agony of unlived lives, and leads to a place where we remember our collective origin and once again feel nourished and at home in the world; to a place where we are enabled to go with the natural organic flow rather than to go against it; to a place where every action becomes a gesture of love; where beauty of being flows into beauty of nations, into beauty of the earth, into the beauty of the Kosmos.”

To learn more about the Kosmos Journal and to see their nomination for “Best Spiritual Coverage” from Utne, visit the kosmosjournal.org.

December 1, 2004

With speakers Joe Firmage, Stan Grof, James O’Dea, and many more.

An alliance of Bay Area organizations are presenting a large-scale event in memory of Dr John Mack. This event is sponsored by Joe Firmage and co-sponsored by the the following organizations:

• John E. Mack Institute (www.johnemackinstitute.org)
• Institute of Noetic Sciences – IONS (www.ions.org)
• International Contact Support Network – ICSM
• Organization for Paranormal Understanding & Support – OPUS (www.opus-net.org)
• Friendly Favors (www.favors.org/ff)
• Mutual UFO Network – MUFON (www.norcalmufon.org)
• Bay Area UFO Expo (www.thebayareaufoexpo.com)
• Bay Area Consciousness Network – BACN (www.bacn.org)

Confirmed speakers for this event

• Joe Firmage
• Stan Grof
• James Gilliland
• James O’Dea
• Kathy Vaquilar
• June Steiner, and
• Daniel Sheehan

Live music provided by Breandain & Chris Langlois of “Demons Defeated” and others. A short film with clips from various films of John Mack will be presented at the beginning of the program.

Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th Street, Oakland, CA
Sunday January 16th at 2:00 PM
Admission: FREE. Suggested donation $10. Proceeds will help cover the expenses for this event and benefit the John E. Mack Institute.

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November 4, 2004

You are invited to join friends of John Mack at 6 pm on Thursday, December 9th in Malibu at the home of Andrew Beath for a commemoration of John Mack’s life and a fundraiser for the John Mack Institute. Join friends of John Mack for shared remembrances of John, video clips, and discussion of the Institute.

WHERE: 20178 Rockport Way, Malibu (7 miles north of Santa Monica on PCH)
WHEN: Thursday, Dec 9 at 6 PM

The executive committee of the Institute has unanimously affirmed our intention to honor Dr Mack by carrying forward his mission. We believe, as John did, that the essence of science is an open-minded spirit of inquiry and a tradition of public validation of knowledge.

We understand that some knowledge may seem so remarkable that nothing less than cultural transformation may be required in order for the knowledge to be appreciated. We are dedicated to fostering this transformation.

To realize the Institute’s mission, we need your support. Please consider making an immediate tax-deductible gift to the Institute. Gifts can be made online or sent via mail.

November 2004

Memorial Service for Dr. John Mack in Cambridge, MA

The family of John E. Mack wish to announce that there will be a memorial service in his honor at the Harvard Memorial Church in Cambridge, MA on Saturday, November 13th at 12:00 Noon.

Harvard’s Memorial Church is located in the center of Harvard Yard, only a short stroll from the Harvard Square subway station on the Red Line; see memorialchurch.harvard.edu for map.

Front to Back: Laurance Rockefeller, John Mack, Trish Pfeiffer, Whitley Strieber

July 11, 2004 – Laurance Rockfeller, an early funder of Dr. John Mack’s research into alien encounters, has passed away.

Read the full obituary notice at the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/nyregion/11CND-ROCK.html

Excerpt: Laurance Rockefeller, the middle brother of the five prominent and philanthropic grandsons of John D. Rockefeller, who concentrated his own particular generosity on conservation, recreation, ecological concerns and medical research, particularly the treatment of cancer, died today at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.

June 29, 2004

Harvard psychologist Richard J McNally has published a study of “experiencers” of alien contact in the journal Psychological Science, Vol 15, No. 7, pp. 493-497.

Harvard psychologist Richard J McNally has published a study of “experiencers” of alien contact in the journal Psychological Science. The National Institute of Discovery Science (NIDS) obtained permission to reprint the article:

Click here to read the study at www.nidsci.org [no longer available].

The study, which showed that people who claim to have been abducted by aliens show the same physiological signs of distress shown by people recalling more plausible traumatic events, was previewed a year ago; see archived press reports by clicking here.

Colm Kelleher, Ph.D., a research scientist at NIDS, notes:

“The journal Psychological Science is one of the more prestigious journals in psychology and is also one of the flagship journals of the American Psychological Society. It is read by thousandsof professional and research psychologists worldwide. Cumulatively Psychological Science readers hold tens of millions of dollars in research grants from NIMH and other grant giving bodies.”

“My hunch is that the data in this paper will surprise many Psychological Science readers in the psychology research community, since it greatly undermines their common perception that abductees are merely attention seekers, charlatans etc who want nothing more than to get their 15 minutes of fame. The data in Dr McNally’s paper are saying that the responses of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) victims and abductees are almost indistinguishable and will therefore demolish some commonly-held stereotypes. I believe that Dr MacNally’s paper may stimulate members of the psychological research community to take the next research step: to use the tools of fMRI and other brain-imaging techniques to take these (to their readers, very surprising) data to the next level. That is precisely what is needed in this field.”

“As such, I believe Dr McNally’s paper is a positive contribution.”

Dr McNally’s interpretation of his data, which relies upon his opinion that alien encounters are not real events, is said to have been criticized by colleagues at Harvard’s 2003 Mind/Brain/Behavior Junior Symposium “Schizophrenia, Dreams, and Alien Encounters”, who noted that his data just as easily supported the theory that the encounters were real.[1]

McNally explained his position to the Harvard Crimson in 2003. “The core findings of this study underscore the power of emotional belief. If you genuinely believe to have been traumatized—even by an alien abduction, which we think is clearly fanciful—you show the psycho-physiological profile of those who have been.”

McNally’s paper concludes by cautioning that “the physiological markers of emotion that accompany recollection of a memory cannot be taken as evidence of the memory’s authenticity,” while simultaneously noting that “one should not conclude that PTSD patients are reporting false memories of trauma” in the case of “more conventional and verifiable” traumatic memories.

William J. Bueché, communications director for the John E Mack Institute, told the Harvard Crimson in 2003 that McNally’s study is “a significant landmark in alien encounter research,” but criticized what he called McNally’s “leap of faith.” “McNally assumes that the alien encounters are just beliefs,” Bueché said, “but that’s not clear-cut.”

Harvard psychiatrist Dr John Mack, whose clinical interviews with more than 200 “experiencers” led him to conclude that prosaic explanations were insufficient to account for the phenomenon, argues “The claim (made to argue from an apriori position that this can’t be real) that people can cook up a genuine traumatic physiological state by simply imagining something that bears no actual relation to their experience goes against all our clinical knowledge accumulated over centuries.”

A Discover magazine article endorsing McNally’s interpretation is expected next month.

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[1] Reporters and audio recording devices were prohibited from Harvard’s 2003 Mind/Brain/Behavior Junior Symposium in order to facilitate more candid discussion of this subject.

June 14, 2004

As long time friends, colleagues and associates of Dr. John E. Mack, Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, we are delighted to announce the birth of the new John E Mack Institute.

Effectively immediately, the Center for Psychology and Social Change, which Dr. Mack established in 1983, is renamed.

In dedicating the Institute in his name, we honor Dr. Mack’s courageous examination of human experiences, and his landmark explorations of the ways in which perceptions and beliefs about reality shape the human condition.

The Institute will honor his example by uncovering and developing areas of inquiry that profoundly contribute to our understanding of human experience, while providing a safe environment for healing discoveries.

On our website, johnemackinstitute.org, you can learn more about our plans for: research, education; interdisciplinary initiatives; educational programs, presentations and publications that will foster positive cultural changes and provide the basis for a more inclusive framework of knowledge for generations to come.

With your participation, we look forward to creating a world richer in understanding and possibilities.

Sincerely,

Richmond Mayo-Smith (Board Member and Chair Emeritus “92-“01)
and
Dennis Briefer (Board Member and Chair Emeritus ’01-’03)

December 14, 2003 — Local filmmaker Laurel Chiten’s documentary “Touched,” about Harvard psychiatrist-turned-philosopher John Mack and “experiencers” of alien contact, won best documentary at the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto earlier this month. This was the film’s first festival and first award.

The Female Eye Film Festival (FeFF) is a Toronto based international independent women’s film festival. The screening was held Saturday Nov 22 at 1:30 PM on the documentary screen of the festival. Filmmaker Laurel Chiten also took part in a panel discussion on Sunday. For more information on the film festival, please visit femaleeyefilmfestival.com.

Chiten is currently in New Mexico, where her film screened at the Santa Fe Film Festival. “Touched” played earlier this year at the Museum of Fine Arts. See previous article about Touched’s premiere.

The educational premiere of Touched was at Harvard University, at a Mind / Brain / Behavior Junior Symposium: “Schizophrenia, Dreams, and Alien Encounters” convened in September 2003 by Edward Kravitz, Ph.D. of the Neurobiology Department of Harvard Medical School.

2004 Updates: In response to the favorable reception of the film by the students and faculty at this day-long symposium, educational distribution of Touched to colleges and universities began in January 2004; institutions that have purchased Touched include Stanford University; Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio; Bates College, Lewiston, Maine; Cal State San Marcos; Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas; Argosy University, Twin Cities, Minnesota; Bosque School (6-12), Albuquerque, New Mexico; William Woods University, Fulton, Missouri; University of Great Falls, Montana; Covenant College, Georgia; Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio; Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut; The Hume Center, Concord, California.

Filmmaker Laurel Chiten was interviewed by Whitley Strieber on Dreamland.

• Listen to the interview (6 min, mp3)

Touched also won Best Documentary of 2003 in the “Abductee or Contactee” category (!) at a long-running UFO convention, The International UFO Congress in Laughlin, Nevada, in 2004.

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2004 Screenings of TOUCHED:

MASSACHUSETTS
Cambridge: MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Wednesday, February 11, 7:00 pm
Showing as part of the “Chicks Make Flicks” series sponsored by Women in Film/New England. Filmmaker Laurel Chiten will be speaking. MIT is located at 77 Massachusetts Avenue. Screening will take place in Building 4, Room 270. Free admission. For more info contact Women in Film at 617.612.0091.

CALIFORNIA
San Francisco
Friday, Feb 20th, tentatively planned for 6:00 pm.
Join Dr. John Mack and filmmaker Laurel Chiten for a special screening and reception in the Penthouse of 3220 Sacramento Street (near Lyon), San Francisco. $40 admission per person, proceeds to support the making of the film; please contact us for more information.

Sonoma
Saturday, Feb 21 at 7:00, Sonoma Film Institute, Darwin Hall, Rm 108.
Sunday, Feb 22 at 4:00 Warren Auditorium, Ives Hall.
Filmmaker Laurel Chiten in Person! Dr. John Mack present Saturday night only. For more information and ticket information, visit www.sonoma.edu

Los Angeles
Join Dr. John Mack, filmmaker Laurel Chiten, and host Shirley MacLaine for our first Los Angeles screening and discussion.
DATE TO BE RESCHEDULED: CHECK BACK SOON! The date we had planned was so close to the Academy Awards that we felt it would be in the best interests of everyone if we changed it to another weekend, probably in April or May. We are checking in to possibilities now and expect to announce a new date soon!

ARIZONA
Tuscon
Monday Feb 23rd, Time TBA
Tuscon Medical School Auditorium of Tuscon University (students and the public are both welcome).

NEW MEXICO
Santa Fe
Tuesday Feb 24th, 6:00 pm
The Screen at the College of Santa Fe with John E. Mack and Laurel Chiten.

NEW MEXICO
Wednesday Feb 25th, 7:00 pm
The Madstone Theater Albuquerque at San Mateo
with John E. Mack and Laurel Chiten.

MASSACHUSETTS
Newburyport Firehouse Center for the Arts, One Market Square
Thursday, April 1st, 7:30pm
with filmmaker Laurel Chiten present for Q&A

NEW YORK [This screening was added after the death of Dr. Mack in Sept 2004]
A screening of the 65 minute film, and a tribute to Dr Mack’s life hosted by Alan Steinfeld of the New Realities cable tv series, with speakers Trish Corbett and Michael Mannion of the Mindshift Institute, Harold Eglen, director of S.P.A.C.E., and Alex Grey, visionary artist. Sponsored by: New Realties; Healing Gifts; The Concordia Foundation; Spirit New York; and FIONS (Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences) as part of the FIONS film series.
WHERE: Healthy Yoga, 4th floor, 540 West 27th (between 10th & 11th Ave)
WHEN: Saturday December 11th, 7pm

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Feedback from the Screenings of TOUCHED:

“I screened Touched at a symposium for undergraduate juniors. Students’ initial skepticism about the subject was replaced with curiosity, tolerance, and a desire to understand. They could not stop asking questions!”
—Edward A. Kravitz, Ph.D.
Professor, Harvard Medical School

“Chiten’s masterful accomplishment combines great tenderness towards the ‘experiencers’ with rigorous questioning. It’s a mind-expanding journey that will ignite any classroom debate.”
—Eleanor Nichols Director,
Sonoma Film Institute,
Sonoma State University

“Touched opens up questions about the complexity of human psychological experience, human relationships, and scientific investigation. It does all this with sensitivity, humor, and impressive cinematic flair. Highly recommended for a lively classroom discussion.”
—Anne Harrington, Ph.D.
History of Science,
Harvard University

“An extraordinary evening. I highly recommend bringing this film to communities around the world if you want to spread the message of the possibility of intelligent life beyond the earth and our unfolding role in the evolving universe.”
—Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of Arizona

“Touched shone as a piece of filmmaking… I’d recommend the film highly, if one wants to hear human stories about seemingly normal, yet torn people, and the people in their lives. I’d also recommend it as a superb piece of documentary filmmaking… Ms Chiten is to be commended for her artistry.”
—Nick DiCiaccio,
Freedom of Mind Resource Ctr

“Touched, a documentary by Laurel Chiten, offers a uniquely contemplative perspective on the alien abduction phenomenon. It avoids cheesy flying saucer footage and tabloid hyperbole to focus on real people looking for the truth behind their unique experiences. Chiten presents the ‘experiencers’ and their stories with sensitivity and without judgment, and does not attempt to prove or disprove their theories. She was introduced to their world by John Mack, M.D., a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard Medical School professor whose research into alien abductions has brought him professional ridicule. Initially uninterested, Chiten became intrigued once she met the human beings behind the wild stories. Mack is an eccentric presence throughout the film, which allows him a dignity he doesn’t often receive in the press. Along with Harvard colleague Alan Dershowitz, he provides some amusingly outspoken commentary on the university’s academic politics. Brazilian experiencers and a surprisingly open-minded Vatican demonologist also provide intriguing commentary.”
—Amy Roeder, Boston’s Weekly Dig (April 9, 2003)

June 2, 2003

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) June quarterly science magazine, IONS REVIEW, includes an article on terrorism and its link to consciousness and worldviews. In this difficult time of violent chaos and widespread outburst of hatred and destruction, is it possible to search beyond the acts of evil to gain an understanding of these behaviors? Can a search for new knowledge and insight help generate a more just and secure world for future generations?

John E. Mack,M.D., professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, writes in his article, “Deeper Causes: Exploring the Role of Consciousness in Terrorism,” that “terrorism does not arise in a vacuum, or from some inchoate reservoir of evil out of which particular bad people may spontaneously emerge at certain times in history.” A broader, more complex worldview needs to be explored that allows a deeper understanding about the causes of this terrorism. “Without understanding what breeds these acts and drives the terrorists to do what they do … we have little chance of preventing further such actions, let alone of ‘eradicating terrorism.'”

James O’Dea, president of IONS said, “In this courageous and insightful article, Mack quotes former Governor Cuomo: ‘The only way to solve the terrorist problem is to change the minds of those who practice terrorism.’ In order to change their minds and murderous hatred in their hearts, we must demonstrate a greater understanding about how we are perceived by the growing numbers of suicidal terrorists and also better understand the roots of their rage.”

Dr. Mack writes that humanity is “at a turning point…a kind of race to the future between the forces of destruction and creation.” He concludes that what will be required is no less than a worldwide shift of consciousness that “enable the citizens of the Earth to become a genuine family of people…in which each of us can come to feel a responsibility for the welfare of all.”

IONS Noetic Sciences Review, June/August 2003, Issue 64, pp.11-17:
http://www.myions.org/Online Library/nsrev/review_archives/issue64/r64mack.pdf

http://johnemackinstitute.org/Deeper_Causes_2003_06_IONS.pdf

March 26, 2003

The mission of our UN program is to bring spiritual values to global issues. Our representative, Nancy Roof, Ph.D., has an announcement:

Spirituality and Reality: New Perspectives on Global Issues, vol. 2 no. 2 is now at the printer and will be available in about a week. It presents an introduction of Spiral Dynamics and an Integral worldview to the international community. Spiral Dynamics Integral is a developmental approach to global issues which includes the interior life, culture, social systems and behavior, which helps us to understand the different worldviews and core values that often clash in the global domain. It addresses the deep core values that determine surface behavior and interpretations. Tolerance, justice, peace, etc., mean different things to different people and this helps us understand why. Feature articles include: Integral Principles and Designs to Untie the Global Knot by Don Edward Beck, Integral Approaches that Transform Us and the World by Nancy Bath Roof, What Really Matters? A Youth’s Quest for Effecting Global Change by Barrett Chapman Brown, and articles by Don Edward Beck, Petra Pietrese, and Georgie Anne Geyer.

Spirituality & Reality is distributed to all United Nations missions around the world. To order, please your name and address by e-mail and a $5 donation for US ($7.50 overseas) by check or money order made payable to the Center for Psychology & Social Change.

Feb 17, 2003 – At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Harvard researcher Richard J. McNally presented data which established that the physiological response from memories of “alien encounter” experiences may be as pronounced as the response from any reality known to be true. This has significant implications, yet only one implication is being promoted by the researcher. McNally has chosen to view these results as evidence of the “power of emotional belief.” However, that conclusion can only be reached if one presumes that alien encounters have not transpired, that they are unreal, and that they are therefore an example of belief – which is, naturally, beyond his study’s ability to determine (a simplistic comparison of contact experiences with sleep paralysis is being promoted by the researcher). The matter of the reality of alien encounters remains unresolved, even as we now have evidence that the impact they leave upon people is as significant as any life experience.

Below we present a copy of a February 17, 2003 BBC article on a research study by Richard McNally of the Harvard Medical School, followed by exclusive commentary and critique from one of the experiencers who participated in the study, and excerpts from additional news articles on this study gathered from around the globe. Of particular merit is an article from the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson.

The study itself has not yet been published.

Alien ‘abductees’ show real symptoms By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff in Denver http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077224/ People who claim to have been kidnapped by aliens have a tendency to believe in fantasies and suffer disturbing experiences in their sleep, scientists have found. But the researchers say “abductees” also believe in their experiences so deeply that they display real stress symptoms similar to those of traumatised battlefield veterans. The latest research on the “taken” phenomenon was unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver. “This underscores the power of emotional belief,” Professor Richard McNally, from Harvard University, told the BBC. ‘Abductees’ “If you genuinely believe you’ve been traumatised and recall these memories, you’ll show the same psycho-physiologic emotional reactions as people who really have been traumatised.” A group of abductees told the BBC about their experiences on Saturday. One of them said: “I’ve had several encounters with alien craft and I’ve had an alien implant removed from my body.” New-age beliefs It was typical of the stories they all had to relate. It is thought there are about four million Americans who believe they have been abducted by extraterrestrials. Scientists believe this clearly is not true, so why do abductees believe they have been taken? Professor McNally has found that many of them share personality traits and sleep disorders. “Most of them had pre-existing new-age beliefs – they were into bio-energetic therapies, past lives, astral projection, tarot cards, and so on,” he said. “Second, they have episodes of apparent sleep paralysis accompanied by hallucinations.” Lab experiments These frightening experiences usually prompted the individuals to visit therapists, who would frequently suggest alien abduction as a cause – an explanation which the abductees readily accepted, he said. Professor McNally has come up with a rational explanation of alien abduction experiences which was endorsed by other psychologists in Denver. He said the individuals conformed to a “common recipe”. But the researcher stressed that many of the people really did believe what they were saying. In laboratory experiments, individuals were asked to relate their experiences. These stories were played back to them and their physical responses recorded. “When a Vietnam vet has his experiences played back to him in the lab of some combat event, his heart rate goes up and you see an increase in sweating. If you don’t have post-traumatic stress disorder, you don’t react that way. “The heart-rate responses and sweating responses were at least as great in the alien abductees when they heard their memories of being taken and molested by space aliens and subjected to experiments as those of people with genuine traumatic events.”

RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE ARTICLE BY ONE OF MCNALLY’S ‘EXPERIENCER’ SUBJECTS

As one of the participants in McNally’s study, I’ve been aware of his personal position on the subject of alien encounters for some time now. As he is a decent man I do not hold it against him that his personal opinion is that alien encounters do not exist; such is entirely his right and it means little to me.

However, as one reads his study (or news articles about it), one needs to be aware that McNally’s personal opinion is not the direct result of his results, which are remarkable. McNally’s study proved that the physiological responses of experiencers are as authentic as the physiological responses of people whose experiences are not considered “unreal.” That has significant implications.

McNally has chosen the safest possible implication — he chooses to view these results as evidence of the “power of emotional belief.” However anyone can see that this is a conclusion which can only be reached if one presumes that alien encounters have not transpired, that they are unreal, and that they are therefore a matter of belief. The study did not prove that alien encounters were fantasy, on the contrary, it proved that the physiological response was as authentic as the response from any reality known to be true. The matter of the reality of alien encounters remains unresolved, even as we now have evidence that the impact they leave upon people is as significant as that from reality.

Although I respect McNally for the research he has done, some of his opinions professed in the article above are based on superficial comparisons which I cannot hold in the same respect — i.e., his suggestion (made here and elsewhere in the press) that because some aspects of alien encounters sound somewhat similar to sleep paralysis and accompanying hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucination, that that may be an explanation.

The following paragraphs have been revised as of July 2003 to reflect facts that came to light upon review of the actual report, which at last became available in draft form.

Indeed, comments in the press suggested that McNally had shown that experiencers have a higher incidence of sleep paralysis than the average population. A review of McNally’s paper (a draft of the report was recently obtained) has revealed that this suggestion is not supported by the study. The sole reason why this suggestion was made is simply because the report defines alien encounters as sleep paralysis. Therefore, a person who reported life long, frequent contact with apparent aliens was reinterpreted by McNally as a person who reported life long episodes of sleep paralysis, and this evidently put them above average.

The opinion that these two experiences were one was based on the superficial similarities between the initial moments of an alien encounter and the experience of sleep paralysis and the tendency for alien encounters to take place at night.

The opinions of experiencers themselves on the distinctions would be ones to consider here, given that many experiencers are familiar with such states of consciousness, since they have been prompted by their experiences to learn about alternative explanations for what they perceived (including studying what is known about human psychology), and still remain unconvinced that these account for their alien encounter experiences.

Experiencers such as myself who have experienced sleep paralysis once or twice may have relevant information. I can easily appreciate how someone who is not personally familiar with both experiences may be tempted to make a connection between the superficial similarity between sleep paralysis and the initial moments of a typical alien encounter. By most estimates, greater than a quarter of the population (some say 30%) have experienced sleep paralysis, which is to say they have become semi-conscious during the natural condition which keeps our bodies from moving during sleep, a time when our perceptions tend to be skewed. That the experience is only superficially similar to some moments of contact seems to be given short thrift by McNally, and indeed as is common when making such comparisons he makes no mention of experiences which are perceived by two or more people simultaneously — which while not establishing for certain that alien encounters take place in our “reality,” certainly blur the distinction between objective (external) reality and internal (subjective) reality far beyond what scientists can account for.

When I originally read McNally’s comments in the press which seemed to suggest that he’d found a link between alien encounters and sleep paralysis, I considered the following idea: “If experiencers do report more episodes of sleep paralysis than the average population, then this discovery could prompt further research into the question of whether altered states of consciousness, such as the states of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep, may be conducive to extraordinary perception (a possibility suggested by Sherwood, S. in the Journal of Parapsychology, June 2002).” Such an exploration may still have merit, however as noted above, McNally’s report did not document an elevation in episodes of sleep paralysis, it merely noted an elevation in alien encounters and then redefined the encounters as sleep paralysis.

A second statement which deserves a closer look is McNally’s suggestion that people who report alien encounters have unusual beliefs about reality, beliefs which he says in the BBC article existed prior to their encounters. One needs to bear in mind that according to most studies, adult experiencers have tended to have had encounters since childhood which they may have disregarded at the time for the most part (childhood experiences tending to have a different quality than those in adult life). If encounters do begin in childhood, then the development of novel ideas about reality may well be the result of their early experiences, even if they did not become fully aware of their experiences until later in their adult lives. In short, “cause and effect” remains in question even for that aspect of his study.

I hope that a critical reader will take into consideration the details of this report, and understand the remarkable results of his physiology study are not diminished by the personal opinions of the researcher.

Related articles:

The Harvard Crimson Thursday, February 20, 2003 Study Explores ‘False Memories’ By JEREMY B. REFF Contributing Writer People who claim they were abducted by aliens show more intense emotional reactions to their memories than some Vietnam War veterans, according to a Harvard study released Sunday. Most researchers hailed the findings as significant in the field of recovered and false memories. But a spokesperson for one controversial Harvard professor said the study may demonstrate something more significant—that humans may actually experience contact with a “third realm.” Professor John E. Mack, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School and a popular writer and commentator on extraterrestrial activity, has disputed the notion that alien abduction claims are fabricated. His spokesperson cites the study as evidence. Most experts, however, say the study’s findings, presented by Professor of Psychology Richard J. McNally at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), show that emotional trauma can stem from imagined experiences. “The core findings of this study underscore the power of emotional belief. If you genuinely believe to have been traumatized—even by an alien abduction, which we think is clearly fanciful—you show the psycho-physiological profile of those who have been,” McNally said. In his study, McNally read abduction accounts both to subjects claiming to have been taken by aliens and to neutral controls, and found significant physiological differences in the reactions of the two groups. The average increase in heart-rate of those who claimed abduction was 7.8 beats-per-minute, compared with no significant response from subjects in the control group. When Vietnam veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder were subjected to the same procedure, the average increase in heart-rate is 3.2 beats-per-minute, McNally said. William J. Bueché, communications director for Mack’s Center for Psychology and Social Change, said the physiological reactions may stem from contact with a spiritual reality that exists apart from the material and the non-material. Bueché said McNally’s study is “a significant landmark in alien encounter research.” He criticized McNally, however, for what he called his “leap of faith.” “McNally assumes that the alien encounters are just beliefs…but that’s not clear-cut,” Bueché said. McNally said he and Mack agree that the subjects had intense emotional experiences, and were not mentally ill; but he added he was “very skeptical” of the abduction narratives themselves. This disagreement over the reality of the abductions is not new. In 1995, then-Dean of the Medical School Daniel C. Tosteson ’44 took the rare step of publicly warning Mack about the manner in which his research on alien abduction was affecting the academic standards of the Medical School. Mack was forced to withdraw Harvard affiliation from his center, and asked by the Medical School to work with other researchers who were not immediately sympathetic to his work. Some scientists said Mack’s research methods cast doubt on his interpretation of McNally’s study. Arnold S. Relman, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and chair of an ad-hoc committee at the Medical School which investigated Mack’s research, said Mack has “only gone through the motions” of producing more objective research. But Bueché said the accusations against Mack were “trivial” and that since 1994, Mack had brought together researchers in multiple disciplines, including McNally, to do research on alien abduction. Relman, however, said he has been “disappointed” with what he called Mack’s lack of objectivity. “If I were dean, I might have said to him, ‘John, for God’s sake, take a look at what you’re doing, you’re making a fool of yourself, and if you believe that you’re onto something of fantastic import… get some help from your colleagues,’” Relman said.

The BBC article was also picked up by HealthScoutNews (syndicated on various websites such as Yahoo), and run in an abridged form:

Alien ‘Abductees’ Experience Real Stress Symptoms, Researcher Says People who say they’ve been abducted by aliens believe so deeply in their encounters that they suffer real stress symptoms resembling those of traumatized war veterans, BBC News reports. “This underscores the power of emotional belief,” the BBC quotes Prof. Richard McNally of Harvard University saying. “If you genuinely believe you’ve been traumatized and recall these memories, you’ll show the same psycho-physiologic emotional reactions as people who really have been traumatized,” McNally adds. The research, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, also found that the “abductees” tend to believe in fantasies and are afflicted with disturbing experiences in their sleep, such as sleep paralysis accompanied by hallucinations.

Coverage of McNally’s study was also picked up by AP (Associated Press) on February 17, paired with information about what AP described as a “new” study about “implanting false memories” by Elizabeth Loftus. In fact Loftus’ study was already reported on last year (the “Bugs Bunny is a Disneyland Character?” study), but it is being reported as if it were new. McNally’s study is mentioned at the end:

…In other research presented Sunday, Harvard University psychologist Richard McNally tested 10 people who said they had been abducted, physically examined and sexually molested by space aliens. Researchers tape-recorded the subjects talking about their memories. When the recordings were played back later, the purported abductees perspired and their heart rates jumped. McNally said three of the 10 subjects showed physical reactions “at least as great” as people suffering post traumatic stress disorder from war, crime, rape and other violent incidents. “This underscores the power of emotional belief,” McNally said.

An Australian news agency called the Herald Sun ran a similar version of the story on the 19th:

The Herald Sun, Australia 19 Feb 03 Sleep terrors not so alien DENVER – They have terrified those who experience them and baffled those who investigate them. But alien abductions – along with ghosts and other paranormal visions that have spooked mankind for centuries – have a simple explanation, scientists are claiming. A study suggests that visits from aliens and night-time ghostly encounters all result from a surprisingly common sleep disorder. Professor Richard McNally said his research suggested a condition called sleep paralysis can account for many types of paranormal experiences. In a study of those who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, he found all suffered from the condition. In sleep paralysis, victims begin to awake from deep sleep and become partially conscious of their surroundings but remain paralysed. Crucially, dreams can still intrude into their consciousness, appearing to be genuine experiences. “Almost one in three of us will have episodes of sleep paralysis at some stage in our lives,” Professor McNally told a science conference. One in 20, he added, experience sleep paralysis and vivid hallucinations. Professor McNally, of Harvard University, tested 10 adults who claimed to have been abducted by aliens and a similar number of people who did not. “Crucially, the people who claimed they had been abducted had all had an episode of sleep paralysis,” Professor McNally said. How people interpreted this experience depended on their culture, Professor McNally added. “Sleep paralysis … has been reported in many different ways in many different cultures throughout history,” he said. “In Newfoundland, it’s called being visited by the ‘old hag’. In the southern US, it’s being ‘ridden by the witch’. In the Middle Ages, it was interpreted as being visited by agents of the Devil. In Massachusetts, it’s being taken up in a space craft and molested by aliens.”

This article from the UK at least has an amusing headline.

The Times (UK) February 18, 2003 Abduction by aliens is really stressful By Mark Henderson PEOPLE who claim to have been abducted by aliens suffer many of the same trauma symptoms as Vietnam veterans and World Trade Centre survivors, even though their memories are not real. Researchers have found that they show many of the physical and psychological effects normally seen in post-traumatic stress disorder, including nightmares, anxiety, racing heartbeats and sweaty palms, when recalling experiences. The findings, by a team at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, suggest that most abductees are not mentally ill and genuinely believe that they have been kidnapped by visitors from outer space and that their false memories were induced by a phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis, which affects 30 per cent of the population at some stage in their lives, occurs when a person wakes during rapid eye movement sleep, when dreaming takes place and the entire body is paralysed with the exception of the eyes. It can often lead to frightening visions called hypnopompic (upon awakening) hallucinations as elements of a dream impinge upon wakefulness. Sufferers usually report being unable to move while seeing shadowy figures around their beds, feeling electric currents coursing through their bodies, or levitating. According to Richard McNally, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, the phenomenon probably explains the witch crazes of the 16th and 17th centuries, ghost sightings and scores of other paranormal events. “Today, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it’s interpreted as abduction by space aliens,” he told the conference. In his study, Professor McNally sought to investigate whether false memories could be as traumatic as genuine ones by examining “the emotional reactions of people whose traumatic memories are almost certainly false — people who claim to remember having been abducted by space aliens”. He asked ten “abductees” to record tapes of their experiences, along with other memories that were either positive, neutral or negative, then analysed their reactions as they listened to the playback. The abductees had psycho-physiological responses similar to those seen in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. “With PTSD, we find these heightened responses when, for example, a Vietnam veteran hears his memories played back to him. The degree of response was at least as great in those who claimed to have been subjected to experiments on space ships as it was in those who have been traumatised by genuine events.” None of the subjects was mentally ill. Professor McNally said: “It’s more mundane than mental illness, or actually being abducted, but it’s a frightening event, and listening to it provokes physiological reactions as strong as PTSD.” All ten abductees recounted reasonably consistent details of their experiences, Professor McNally said, but these were almost certainly culturally determined. “Their memories were of being subjected to sexual and medical probing on spaceships. I certainly think we can say The X-Files probably helped with all that.” Sleep paralysis was the likely explanation for many paranormal phenomena. All the subjects in the study had visited “recovered memory” practitioners before recalling their alien experiences. [Note from CPSC: That claim, in the last sentence, is not true]

The Financial Times (!) also reported on the study. In this article McNally suggests that his results provide a cautionary note: that inaccurately recalled memories (“recovered memories” are cited, possibly a nod to attendee Elizabeth Loftus, see AP story above) can produce intense emotional reaction. Though he is well intentioned, we again note that McNally is taking the position that alien encounters are examples of inaccurately recalled events in order to make his case. If they are in fact events which are recalled with some accuracy, then logically the study’s relevance to this point is null.

Tuesday February 18 2003 American Association for the Advancement of Science: Studies question reliability of memory By Clive Cookson in Denver Frightening new evidence of the brain’s susceptibility to suggestion was presented yesterday to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Psychologists described recent experiments in which they implanted false memories, altered perceptions through subliminal messages, and demonstrated the intense emotional distress of people who believed they had been abducted by aliens. … Richard McNally of Harvard University studies 10 people who had reported being abducted by aliens and subjected to traumatic experiences such as sexual examination on a spaceship. Participants recorded these experiences on audiotapes, which were played back to them later in the laboratory while researchers measured their heart rate, skin sweating and muscle tension. The physiological symptoms of emotional distress shown by the abductees during playback were similar to those of people suffering from real post-traumatic stress. Prof McNally said his experiment should sound a warning to some psychotherapists who believed “recovered memories” of past traumas such as childhood sex abuse are genuine just because they induce intense emotion. “The intensity of emotional reaction associated with a memory cannot confirm the authenticity of the memory,” he said.

Alien memories leave real scars Scientist says false abduction tales create genuine stress By Alan Boyle MSNBC DENVER, Feb. 16 — People who say they’ve been abducted by aliens exhibit the same physiological reactions as people who have experienced more conventional kinds of trauma, a Harvard psychologist reported Sunday. He says the research provides evidence that even false memories can leave real emotional scars. However, he doesn’t expect to convince the abductees themselves that they’re wrong. ALIEN ABDUCTIONS have become an integral element of American popular culture — due in part to television programs like “The X-Files” and the recent miniseries “Taken,” in which abductions are a common plot element. Surveys consistently indicate that about a third of all adult Americans believe extraterrestrials have visited Earth. Harvard psychology professor Richard McNally, author of the forthcoming book “Remembering Trauma,” isn’t one of them. Indeed, he said he selected the subject for study precisely because memories of such abductions were “almost certainly false.” The point of McNally’s research, presented here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was to see whether the emotional impact of a false memory generated physiological signs similar to the post-traumatic stress suffered after authentic experiences. Along the way, McNally developed a profile for typical abductees. PORTRAIT OF AN ALIEN ABDUCTEE The Harvard research team placed an ad in Boston newspapers to recruit their subjects. Most of those who responded were pranksters, but 10 people were selected as sincere reporters of abduction experiences. McNally said the screening interviews indicated that the typical abductee: Endorsed a variety of “new age” beliefs — for example, a readiness to accept psychic phenomena. Scored high on a measure of absorption, or “fantasy-proneness.” Described an experience similar to sleep paralysis — in which a person emerges from rapid-eye-movement sleep into a half-waking state, able to move the eyes but not much else. McNally said about 30 percent of the population has had such an experience, which has been linked to jet lag and other sleep-cycle disruptions. In addition, the early stages of a reported abduction paralleled descriptions of hypnopompic hallucinations — nightmares that intrude into the half-waking state. About 5 percent of the population have reported such experiences, McNally said. May recover detailed “memories” of being subjected to medical or sexual probing on spaceships. May eventually come to regard the experience as positive and spiritually enriching, even though it was terrifying at the time.DOING THE EXPERIMENT Once the 10 abductees and eight control subjects were selected, McNally put them through a standard procedure for gauging post-traumatic stress disorder.The abductees were asked to record their memories of a neutral, positive and stressful event from everyday life, as well as two abduction experiences. Then the abductees listened to their audiotapes while hooked up with equipment to monitor heart rate, skin conductance (which detects sweaty palms) and facial muscle tension. Separately, each member of the control group listened to an abductee’s tapes to gauge an outsider’s reaction to the same descriptions.When they listened to accounts of their own alien encounters, the abductees exhibited the physiological signs you might expect from someone suffering post-traumatic stress: heightened heart rate, increased sweating. McNally said three of the 10 abductees showed “subclinical” signs of post-traumatic stress disorder — which other experts have said affects 5 to 15 percent of Americans.All this led McNally to the conclusion that falsely believing you’ve been traumatized could create the same reaction as actual trauma. “The fact that somebody shows this reaction does not prove that the event actually occurred,” he said. “What it does seem to indicate is the sincere belief in the emotional intensity of the memory, whether true or false.” He emphasized that the abductees were not considered patients and did not require psychiatric treatment. Rather, they were all considered psychiatrically healthy. EARTHLY IMPLICATIONS McNally said his findings, which have been submitted to a scientific journal but not yet published, could have an impact beyond “The X-Files.” For example, in child sexual abuse cases, some therapists have argued that if a child shows signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome, that serves as evidence that the child had in fact been abused — a type of claim known as “syndrome evidence.” “I don’t think you can make that claim, based on what we found,” McNally said. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist at the University of California at Irvine who has conducted years of research into false-memory implantation, said McNally’s research is helpful for bringing the question of plausible vs. patently false memories into sharper focus. “He feels pretty safe in saying these are false memories,” Loftus said. “Of course the individuals who have them don’t believe it, nor do some of their handlers, but most of us would accept that those are false memories. And most of those individuals get there in a way that’s very analogous to the way people get to believe that they were satanically abused.” This isn’t McNally’s first brush with the UFO crowd: He was involved in another study, published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology last year, that concluded abductees were generally prone to create false memories. [see note below] “That caused a big uproar in the alien-abductee community. And now I was told … that they love the psychophysiology study, because they’re going to think, ‘Oh, here it is, it really happened,’” he said with a laugh. “First we’re the bad guys, now we’re the good guys. We’re just trying to do the science on this.” He said he had no intention of deprogramming his experimental subjects, since they seemed to have transformed their negative memories into something positive. “These individuals had embraced the identity of abductee in such a way that we felt that they were happy with it,” he said. McNally said only one of the abductees asked detailed questions about the point of his research. “I mentioned the sleep paralysis stuff,” he recalled, “and she crossed her arms and said, ‘You scientists need to learn how to think outside the box. There are things outside there in the universe that you really don’t know about.’ “We have no interest in disabusing them of their beliefs.” Note from Center editor: The earlier study to which McNally refers, a “thematic word-list” experiment conducted by McNally’s associate Susan Clancy was also derided by Harvard Medical School’s leading authority on memory, Daniel P. Brown, Ph.D., editor of Memory, Trauma Treatment, and the Law Comments left on MSNBC website Name: David Hennessy First let me state that I am a firm supporter of science as a “candle in the dark,” so to speak, in an age of so much rampant superstition and ignorance. However, something that bothered me — not about your article, but about the scientists involved — was the fact that they began their research with the assumption that the individuals they were interviewing were well-intentioned, self-deluded fantasy-prone individuals. How many bona fide psychology experiments begin with a de facto assumption of that kind, with the express intent of determining a conclusion about the reality of memories when the event itself is false? The number of assumptions that the experiment began with — begging the conclusion with assumptions as well — is staggering. The question, then, was, “Do alien abduction memories, which are false, lead to real trauma?” That is hardly a scientific question. It starts off with two major assumptions; a) it is aliens behind the phenomenon, and b) the aliens behind it don’t really exist. The right question to start with, if the… Name: Colin Burt It’s quite unscientific to make the utterly unsubstantiated assumption, based on absolutely nothing but what the “researcher” (McNally of Harvard) and obviously you clearly want to believe, that the abductees’ memories are false.

The Australian branch of ABC News Online ran the following story

News in Science 17/2/2003 ‘Alien abductees’ suffer post-traumatic stress [http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s786169.htm] Even false memories of being taken by a UFO can trigger post-traumatic stress Alien abduction stories may be triggered by false memories, but sufferers still exhibit many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a U.S. study. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Professor Richard McNally, a psychologist at Harvard University in Boston, said people who recover false memories exhibit many of the same emotional effects as real trauma victims. His team studied 10 adults who reported having been abducted by aliens, and compared these to eight control subjects who denied ever having been abducted, to measure physiological responses elicited when recalling these memories. The ‘abductees’ were asked to record a narrative of their abduction, then another stressful experience in their life, followed by a happy memory and a neutral memory. Tapes of the discussion were later played back to the participants while their heart rate and galvanic skin response (or sweat response) was measured. The control group, who denied ever having been abducted by aliens, were also measured whilst listening to the same tapes. McNally found that those claiming to have been abducted exhibited the same physiological responses – increased heart rate and sweating – as victims of real trauma who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as Vietnam veterans and firemen. “This underscores the power of emotional belief,” McNally told reporters. But there were significant differences between these adults and PTSD sufferers, said McNally. None of the participants were diagnosed as mentally ill, and when asked whether they would go through the experience of alien abduction again if they were given the chance, almost all of the participants said yes. Many remembered the experience as terrifying, but also very spiritual, said McNally. This differs greatly from the experience of a PTSD sufferer. Certain characteristics typified the subjects who believed that they had been abducted, McNally noted. ‘Abductees’ professed to have pre-existing ‘New Age’ beliastefs such as astral travelling, and a proneness to fantasy. Most importantly, they had episodes of ‘sleep-paralysis’ accompanied by hypnopompic (or upon-waking) hallucinations. ‘Sleep-paralysis’ occurs when a person wakens from REM sleep (named after the rapid-eye movement made in deep sleep) and is partly conscious but not fully awake. Dreams often intrude into reality in this state. About 30% of the population experiences sleep-paralysis, and 5% experience hypnopompic hallucinations. Eight out of the 10 study participants who believed they had been abducted had visited a psychologist or memory recovery specialist, which McNally believes could have translated their waking dreams and hallucinations into ‘memories’ of alien abduction. Maryke Steffens – ABC Science Online

January 15, 2003

A new film by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Laurel Chiten, TOUCHED, premieres at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts on February 20. TOUCHED is much more than a look at alien encounters. It is about the human condition – about longing for connection and fear of separation.

Dr. John Mack, the founder of the Center and a leading authority on the traumatic and transformational elements of alien encounters, invited the Emmy-nominated filmmaker to document the lives of several “experiencers” in the faith that she would see that the phenomenon – regardless of whether aliens are as real as they seem – is ultimately one that profoundly affects people’s lives.

“Following the lead of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell the audience will witness an archetypal ‘Hero’s Journey.'” Chiten explains. “For the subjects of our film, their experiences have resulted in a kind of Holy Grail search for truth. Beneath the sensational aspects of alien encounters, these are real people looking for answers. TOUCHED will follow a human quest to solve a mystery – perhaps only to find that the answer is the quest itself.”

The experiencers, Mack observed, were being forced to reevaluate their sense of the world, and how they relate to it. As one put it, “It makes you feel. It makes you move – sometimes violently – through things you don’t want to move through in your psyche and your ego and any of the other words you choose to call yourself.”

At a Center event in 1999, an overwhelming majority of experiencers supported the position that their alien encounters are acting as a catalyst for their own – and humanity’s collective – evolution. The personal challenges that such an evolution entails for four experiencers, their friends and loved ones, are in evidence in Chiten’s new film.

Chiten’s earlier films include The Jew in the Lotus, which explores the intersection of Buddhism with Judaism, and the Emmy-nominated Twitch and Shout, which focuses on people with Tourette Syndrome. Both of her earlier films have been shown nationally on PBS; TOUCHED is now on offer.

TOUCHED premieres at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts
Thursday February 20, 2003 at 8pm
with reception following. The filmmaker and Dr. John Mack will be present.
Three additional screenings of TOUCHED are planned:
Sunday March 9 at 12:20 (film only);
Friday April 11 at 8pm (filmmaker and Dr. Mack expected); and
Wednesday April 16 at 6pm (filmmaker and Dr. Mack expected).

For advance tickets and for more information visit blinddogfilms.com

Touched will be released on home video after being screened around the country. There are no plans to release this documentary to television.

Boston’s Weekly Dig April 2002 Touched, a documentary by Laurel Chiten, offers a uniquely contemplative perspective on the alien abduction phenomenon. It avoids cheesy flying saucer footage and tabloid hyperbole to focus on real people looking for the truth behind their unique experiences. Chiten presents the “experiencers” and their stories with sensitivity and without judgment, and does not attempt to prove or dispove their theories. She was introduced to their world by John Mack, M.D., a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard Medical School professor whose research into alien abductions has brought him professional ridicule. Initially uninterested, Chiten became intruiged once she met the human beings behind the wild stories. Mack is an eccentric presence throughout the film, which allows him a dignity he doesn’t often receive in the press. Along with Harvard colleague Alan Dershowitz, he provides some amusingly outspoken commentary on the university’s academic politics. Brazilian experiencers and a surprisingly open-minded Vatican demonologist also provide intruiging commentary. Screening at the Museum of Fine Arts on April 11 at 8pm and April 16 at 6pm. See http://www.mfa.org for more information.

Imagine Magazine Feb 2003 Close Encounters with Laurel Chiten by Erin Trahan One snowy Boston evening changed the course of things for director Laurel Chiten. “I feel like John Mack abducted me,” she laughs. “I don’t know what was going on that night, I was being so goofy, making everyone laugh.” The snow prevented a colleague from introducing her film, THE JEW IN THE LOTUS. So she arrived at the MFA, appealingly disheveled, to take his place. It was her sense of humor and her edge that prompted John Mack to seek her out after the film. “I didn’t even know who he was. He wanted me to make a film about alien abductions.” So who is John Mack? Though a professor of psychiatry at Harvard and a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, his celebrity is arguably more attached to his research on alien encounters than more “suitable” subjects for a person of his ilk. Since publishing the best selling book Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens in 1997 (and outing him as a presumed extraterrestrial “believer” on shows like OPRAH and the TODAY SHOW), Mack grew frustrated, even bored by the predictable questioning of whether accounts of abductions were true or false. His next book on the subject, Passport to the Cosmos, is meant to move beyond the question of “if” and to a question that he believes is more relevant to earthly life “what do alien abductions mean for us?” Chiten’s immediate reaction to exploring the topic of alien abduction was to push the project away. “I knew absolutely nothing about the subject, and more importantly, I didn’t care about it.” Her other films like TWITCH AND SHOUT and THE JEW IN THE LOTUS came from her kitchkes, they were personal to her. When she finally started sifting through the first-person accounts of missing time, bodily probing, sperm extraction, impregnation, and apocalyptic warnings, Chiten reacted like most first-time abductees: she was frightened. She acknowledges that the topic called up her deepest fears, fears she cannot necessarily name. “I was emphatic about not making this film,” she reiterates. But Mack’s persistence led to an encounter at the Harvard faculty club, where Chiten first heard “experiencers” (as they call themselves) speak. She was struck by how sane the speakers appeared. “One woman reached out her hand to describe how it felt to be touched by an alien . . . and she started to cry. Forget aliens, it was so human to me, this longing to connect.” It is the translation of ostensibly inhuman experiences into unavoidably human terms that Chiten explores in TOUCHED. TOUCHED is Chiten’s third documentary. For someone who never set out to be a director, she’s developed an impressive niche. She started with two series: TWO IN TWENTY, a five-episode satirical soap and a ten-part video series based on Robin Casarjian’s book, House of Healing. Would-be-directors may not want to hear Chiten’s thoughts about joining her ranks. “Don’t become a filmmaker unless you have to. It is extremely hard work.” And has she made money from her films? Not really. Yet every time she engages a new subject, she falls in love, only to revisit the stress and anxiety of wondering if the film will ever be seen or appreciated once completed. Since she is just wrapping production on TOUCHED, in preparation for its February 20 debut at the MFA, she admits to being stretched a little thin. Fortunately, she surrounded herself with a great crew: “I attract people who are much smarter than I am, they make me look really good.” Perhaps too modest, Chiten has had colleagues claim that it is her credibility as a filmmaker that will get them through the door of seeing her latest, potentially controversial film. TOUCHED has been unique for Chiten because it essentially has three coproducers: Chiten along with editor Sabrina Zanella-Foresi and DP Andy Abraham Wilson. Even with their camaraderie, the crew approached the subject matter with differing philosophies. “Let’s just say I was Scully and Andy was Mulder. We actually called each other that.” Apparently “Mulder” was eager to experience his own UFO ride. One unexpected (and still highly confidential) occurrence dramatically affected the film at its zero hour. Let’s just say something happened to a character that in Chiten’s words “had a ripple effect on the entire film.” She promises the newly integrated material makes for an even more intense ending. “TOUCHED is really the most provocative film I’ve done.” Chiten wishes the film could tour the world, with she and Mack answering Q and A. Not that the film is about answers. But it opens up questions about the reorganization and reevaluation of strongly held beliefs about the cosmos, the divine, and the ever-pressing need for human connection. Chiten calls it a “launch pad” for discussing the pain and healing of transformation, inevitably and ultimately human. Chiten’s next projects are in various stages of production. She is working on “Freedom Behind Bars”, in collaboration with The Lionheart Foundation, about a ten-day meditation retreat inside a maximum-security prison in Alabama as well as “Twisted” about a neurological disorder even more unknown than Tourette’s Syndrome. Chiten describes, “like a TWITCH AND SHOUT two.” Both of these have footage shot and she is looking for funding. Chiten chalks up her chance meeting with Mack as serendipitous. But when asked about how she chooses her next film project she says, “Most of the time I don’t pick a project, they pick me.” Maybe TOUCHED will explain exactly who “they” are. Or maybe it’s more exhilarating not to know. TOUCHED premieres at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on February 20th at 8 pm. Both Laurel Chiten and John E. Mack will be present.. And will screen again on March 9 at 12:20 pm, Friday, April 11, at 8 pm with John Mack present, and Wednesday, April 16, at 6 pm. For more information about TOUCHED or Laurel Chiten, visit www.blinddogfilms.com. Erin Trahan is a freelance writer who frequently contributes to Imagine Magazine. She is a member of the Board for Women in Film/Video New England and lives in Jamaica Plain, MA.

NEFilm January 2003 Drawn to Human Drama Director Laurel Chiten delves into the world of alien abductees in her latest documentary “Touched” By Amy Roeder Director Laurel Chiten says that she “keeps making the same film over and over again.” Of course, the parallels between Chiten’s stories of alien abductees, individuals with Tourette’s Syndrome, and a Jewish writer and group of rabbis on a trip to meet the Dalai Lama may not seem obvious, but each is driven by the search for a sense of connection, Chiten explains. Chiten recently completed the documentary, “Touched,” which will premiere on February 20, 2003 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The film focuses on people who believe that they have experienced alien encounters. This is not the typical tabloid treatment of the topic, but rather an exploration of real people looking for answers. Whether or not the subjects’ stories are real, it is clear that each individual’s life has been irrevocably transformed by their quest to solve the mystery of their experience. The central figure in the story is John Mack, M.D., a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard Medical School professor who suffered public and professional ridicule when he became a “believer.” Mack approached Chiten about making a film based on his research. She initially had no interest in the subject, but agreed to accompany Mack to hear some alleged abductees, or “experiencers,” speak. Chiten became intrigued once she met the human beings behind the wild stories of bodily probing and alien/human-hybrid breeding programs. She wondered, “What happens when the unexplained intrudes into our lives, and how do lives and relationships respond when credulity is strained to the breaking point?” The resulting film is “not really about aliens,” Chiten said. “It’s about what people do when they’re dealt something difficult.” “I’m interested in underdog stories,” Chiten said, “giving a voice to people outside of society’s norm. The films are all about going on a journey. And they all have a spiritual underpinning, and a similar sense of humor.” Chiten finds storytelling to be the most compelling aspect of filmmaking. A certified American Sign Language interpreter, she started her career writing and directing deaf theater productions. She was drawn to film as a way to use her own voice. Her first major project was as producer, director and co-writer or the 5-part satirical lesbian soap opera, “Two in Twenty. ” Originally shown on public access, the series has attained cult status on home video. She created her landmark documentary about people living with Tourette’s Syndrome, “Twitch and Shout,” with the intention of following it up with a narrative film. Diagnosed with a mild case of Tourette’s herself, Chiten hoped to raise awareness about this often misunderstood genetic neurological disorder which can cause uncontrollable muscle tics and vocal expressions. The film “put Tourette’s on the map,” Chiten said, and eventually garnered nationwide airplay on the PBS series “P.O.V.,” in addition to an Emmy nomination and numerous other honors. However, after five years in production, she was left debt-ridden, exhausted and vowing never to make another film. But Chiten did not keep that vow for long. Looking for spiritual solace on a Buddhist chat room one night, she discovered the book “The Jew in the Lotus” by Roger Kamenetz, a best-selling account of the 1990 visit of eight rabbis to India to meet the Dalai Lama and share “the secret of Jewish spiritual survival in exile.” Kamenetz, who was recovering from the death of his baby, tagged along to chronicle the event, and was transformed by the experience. Chiten was inspired to take on the difficult task of translating a book with very little narrative into a film. Over the course of production, the theme of the film evolved into an exploration of the ways in which spirituality can help people deal with suffering. “Filmmaking is a lot like falling in love,” Chiten wrote for the premiere of “The Jew in the Lotus” at the 1998 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. “We have no control over who we fall in love with. … I never look for a story but wait until I ‘fall in love’ with something that I simply cannot say no to. Then I become elated and driven totally amnesiac, forgetting how difficult the ‘relationship’ can be.” “The Jew in the Lotus” was broadcast nationwide on PBS’ “Independent Lens,” and has screened around the world. It was honored with the Most Outstanding Personal Vision award from the New England Film and Video Festival. Among Chiten’s other projects is “Houses of Healing,” a 10-part series she produced based on Robin Casarjian’s emotional awareness course for prisoners. Chiten also is a frequent public speaker, and a teacher at the Boston Film and Video Foundation, Maine Photographic Workshops and the Digital Media Workshops. An artist-inresidence at several prestigious artists’ colonies, Chiten was honored with the Artist’s Fellowship for creativity in video production from the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities in 1987. She served as a documentary juror at the 2001 Florida Film Festival. Chiten said that she still hopes to make a narrative film some day, but says, “Documentary ideas keep presenting themselves to me. Who knows what I’ll do next?” Amy Roeder is a Boston-based freelance writer.

December 5, 2002

Those interested in our research into extraordinary experiences may be pleased to learn that an hour of highlights from the SciFi Channel’s two recent symposiums on alien encounters (in NY and Washington DC) will be aired at 3AM, late night of Friday December 13 (technically that is the morning of December 14).

Included are excerpts from presentations by Dr. John Mack, Dr. Jacques Vallee, Dr. Michio Kaku, Budd Hopkins, and Dr. David Jacobs.

This special will be repeated Sunday, 12/22 at 2:00 a.m., Friday, 12/27 at 7:00 a.m., and Saturday, 12/28 at 5:00 a.m

November 6, 2002

On November 21, the Sci-Fi Channel is presenting THE ALIEN ABDUCTION DIARIES, an intimate look at otherworldly encounters, their aftermath and the unexpected impact on human lives in this production by award-winning documentary filmmakers Tina DiFeliciantonio and Jane C. Wagner.

Kathy, one of the experiencers who braved the media exposure recently shared her impressions of the filmmakers: “Their approach towards the subject of contact impressed me. They were much more open to the perspective that contact could be a positive experience, that aliens weren’t necessarily bad guys and a threat to humanity. And they abhorred the traditional sensationalism that tends to be portrayed in such programs.” “I realize that working on this major media project is a risk,” she continues, “but I felt participating in this might be an important and hopefully positive contribution to educating the public about UFOs and contact experience, which is why I went ahead with it.”

Airs Friday, November 22, at 10PM
Saturday, November 23, at 4PM
Tuesday, November 26, at 8AM

In related news, Dr. John Mack’s first-ever online LIVE CHAT about alien encounters was held by the SciFi Channel a couple weeks ago; the transcript is available on our website:
Click here

Both of the above events are part of the launch of Steven Spielberg’s upcoming epic miniseries, TAKEN, which airs this December on the SciFi Channel in the US, and early next year on the BBC.

February 2, 2000

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals often see clients whose experiences seem unfamiliar and do not fit the categories of the DSM-IV, the standard manual for psychological diagnoses. Our tendency in such cases may be to treat the experiences as pathological or to force them into categories to which they do not belong.

On February 2nd, Dr. Mack and Roberta Colasanti, LICSW, spoke at the psychiatry Grand Rounds of the Cambridge Hospital (a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School) to address how worldviews shape how we think about cases, and what clinical approaches may be more helpful to people who bring their unusual experiences to therapists.

December 31, 1999

John E. Mack’s newest book, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters, is the culmination of five years of additional research (since 1994’s Abduction) with more than 200 people who have reported encounters with beings often described as aliens (“experiencers”). A trade paperback edition is being released in November 2000. The book is dedicated to the experiencers with whom Dr. Mack has worked over the past ten years.

“I am interested in the meaning of these experiences for the so-called abductees and for humankind more generally,” Dr. Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, writes in the preface. “In that sense, Passport to the Cosmos is not simply about abductions but has to do with what such anomalous experiences and related phenomena can tell us about ourselves and our evolving knowledge of the nature of reality.”

Dr. Mack presents common themes that have emerged in his work with experiencers from the West, as well as experiencers from indigenous cultures from northern Brazil to South Africa.

In an interview soon after publication, Dr. Mack said, “I have come to feel this phenomena is a very complex engagement of a larger intelligence (‘Source’ is the word most often used) through perhaps intermediaries (the ‘aliens’), towards some apparent end, which is the evolution of consciousness and the preservation of this planet.”

“The people who have the experiences move. They change. They grow. They transform. They become Earth-conscious. That is why I seek to give them voice, for they become passionate on behalf of the stewardship of the Earth.”

Passport to the Cosmos is arranged in topical chapters that explore the emergent themes through the lenses of philosophy, anthropology, theology, developmental and transpersonal psychology, trauma theory, consciousness research, and physics. These explorations are laid out in four sections. The first one introduces the phenomenon and asks the reader to question the way in which one’s worldview affects the ability to integrate new information.

Next, Dr. Mack explores the theme of “protecting the Earth”, an environmental message many experiencers receive, and examines reported reproductive procedures that seem to suggest a “hybrid project” has joined humanity and the alien beings in a sense that may be both literal and symbolic.

A cross-cultural perspective is explored at length in the third section. The experiences and philosophies of experiencers who have lived in indigenous cultures — including Native American Choctaw member Sequoyah Trueblood, Brazilian shaman and anthropologist Bernardo Peixoto of the Ureu-eu-wau-wau (“People of the Stars”), and South African sangoma Vusumazulu Credo Mutwa — are compared and contrasted with those of experiencers whose upbringing has been solely in the Western worldview. Dr. Mack suggests that much can be learned from indigenous cultures about ways to approach this phenomenon that may enhance both the acquisition of information and our integration of it.

The final section of Passport to the Cosmos explores the trauma and transformation that experiencers go through as they enter into a relationship with their experiences. The experiences, Dr. Mack concludes, ask much of the participants — experiencers, researchers, and the greater public alike. However, Dr. Mack believes that if humanity can successfully move beyond the terror of the unfamiliar on both an individual and institutional level, we can learn much more about humanity’s relationship to the cosmos in which we live.

During an interview on NBC’s The Today Show, host Matt Lauer asked Dr. Mack, “Why would it benefit me to read these people’s stories in this book?”

“The purpose of doing this work,” Dr. Mack replied, “is to open us to the idea that the universe may be vastly more interesting, containing entities, energies, beings that we did not know existed. When we open that consciousness, we open to a larger reality. We’re not simply Earth-bound in our consciousness as if we were the top intelligence in the cosmos. We come more modestly to realize we are in connection with energies, beings, whatever it may be that is beyond ourselves. And that would be a very healthy development for this species, it seems to me.”

On that theme, Dr. Mack replied to radio host Bob Hieronimus’ inquiry about why he chose the title Passport to the Cosmos. “Passport is a word used to maintain borders between countries. These experiences, by cracking open that ethnonational bias or restricted consciousness, if you will, that mistaken identity that we are simply members of a certain country, people discover they are citizens of a much larger reality, of a cosmic reality. They are citizens of universal experience. And the universe is not particularly concerned with white people, black people, Americans versus Russians — the universe as far as I can tell is not dividing itself that way. The idea of the title is that this experience can expand our sense of who we are beyond our national prejudices.”

Soon after the hardcover’s release, calls and letters from the public were arriving at PEER daily. A stockbroker from Cocoa Beach, Florida, wrote, “Why do we pick up books we have never heard of, and then are tremendously influenced by them forever? Yours has done that to me. Passport to the Cosmos has opened up an entirely new perception of the universe for me.”

November 17, 1999

The Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER) visited New York City in mid-November to formally introduce Dr. Mack’s new book, Passport to the Cosmos, and to present to the public a summary of our current understanding of the nature and meaning of the alien encounter experience. The event was held in the main auditorium of the New York Academy of Medicine on Fifth Avenue.

Before the evening’s presentation, a prototype of a musical piece by composer David Ison was played. Mr. Ison’s composition for PEER, “Voices of the Experience”, features the voices of experiencers excerpted with permission from PEER’s clinical sessions. The music moves from rhythms of fear, to a place of unknowing, to reconnection. The excerpts from experiencers were selected to reflect these stages.

Beginning the presentation, PEER’s clinical director Roberta Colasanti, LICSW, provided an overview of the stages of evolution from trauma to transformation that PEER’s clinical team has seen in working with experiencers.

She stated that the reactions of fear, denial, compartmentalizing, depression, and intense questioning are all parts of the process of adjusting one’s worldview in the face of conflicting information. Using data from PEER’s 80-subject comparative personality study, she examined each of the diagnoses that are typically suggested as explicatory of these experiences, and explained why they fail to adequately account for the phenomenon.

A central question arose from her presentation, namely, “After we have faced the reality of these experiences, what do we do next?”

Dr. Mack then spoke at length about where his exploration of this phenomenon has brought him, and where it may lead our Western culture. Later in the program, they were joined on stage by a woman whose recall of her alien encounter experiences began unexpectedly while she underwent a routine acupuncture procedure.

Rising enthusiastically from the audience at the start of the question and answer period, actor Dan Aykroyd asked how many members of the audience would try to prevent having further experiences if it were possible to do so, and how many would choose to continue having them. Amajority raised their hands in favor of continuing to have such experiences.

An experiencer in the audience spoke of heightened compassion for humanity that arose from having interactions with beings whose telepathic communications seem to flow into her body. She asked the audience to consider how we as a culture could communicate with each other and diminish our isolation from one another — an isolation which, like many experiencers, she feels quite profoundly and is painful for her to see around her. She spoke of the difficulty of living in a culture that does not value or trust other people, let alone visitors from afar.

Pioneering researcher Budd Hopkins joined the conversation to suggest that until we are able to interact with the beings as equals, we should hold them with the same distrust that some people hold the United States government.

The event drew a lot of interest from the media with coverage from Jane Hanson of NBC television, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. An audio excerpt of Jane Hanson’s interview with Dr. Mack (which was not aired) is available:

Listen to Jane Hanson of Today in NY (7 min excerpt of an unreleased Nov 17, 1999 interview with Dr. Mack)(mp3)

October 1999: State of the World Forum, San Francisco

The State of the World Forum, held October 1 to 6 in San Francisco, gathered more than 800 luminaries, leaders, and futurists from around the world to develop and examine systemic solutions that impact business, politics, and human development into the next millennium. It is in a spirit of mutual respect and inquiry that discussions are held, accentuating the ethical and spiritual aspects of the issues as they arise. The annual conferences seek to quite literally explore the “state of the world” in all its multidimensionality. This Fifth Annual State of the World Forum was a special anniversary event launching the forum’s millennium programs.

Dr. John Mack and Dr. Michael Zimmerman (see p. 3), participated in “A Conversation at the Edge of Human Knowledge and Experience” with philosopher Rick Tarnas, author of Passion of the Western Mind, and transpersonal psychology advocate Georgia Kelly. They were joined by an experiencer who shared lessons she feels we are expected to learn from alien interactions with humankind. Dr. Mack also contributed to a forum moderated by Daniel Sheehan featuring Donald Beck, Guru Charan, Brian Greene, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Ralph Potter, Beverly Rubik, Brian Swimme, Richard Tarnas, and Marianne Williamson.

A high level of engagement was reported during this and many other conversations that addressed the edge of humankind’s understanding, and PEER is looking forward to continuing relationships with many of the people who shared in this dialogue.

September 1999: Dharamsala, India

Dr. John Mack traveled to Dharamsala, India, where he was part of a symposium invited to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to explore how to create a culture of peace. The convener of this meeting was the Association for Global New Thought, with co-direction from the Synthesis Institute and the Dearborn Institute.

In an interview with New Dimensions radio, Dr. Mack was asked what came into focus from being in Dharamsala.

“What I take from this is a skillful means of interrupting cycles of violence. The strategies, or new forms of power, have to be much more imaginative, inventive, and powerful than ever before.”

“Power is the latent, creative energy in the universe. Power is not dominating another person, or conquering another nation.”

“The problems in the world, in a large part, derive from the fact that the people who are willing to use that power destructively are less afraid to use it, than those of us that seek a higher level of consciousness. It’s as if a higher level of consciousness is synonymous with a retreat from power. But it must not be that way. We must use new, imaginative ways of compassion, persuasion, influence, saying no — All kinds of things which are non-violent, but are also powerful.”