Heretics in the New Church of Science
by Brian L. Crissey, Ph.D.

Contact Forum
March/April 1996
Vol. 4, No. 2
p. 22

Science is the new Church, and as Budd Hopkins observes, Carl Sagan is its Pope. This Church's dogma states with a straight face that the entire universe sprang out of dark nothingness for no apparent reason one morning a long time ago. Further, this Church asks its faithful to believe in quarks and bosons and the like, even though no one has ever seen one. Instead, indirect and ephemeral traces are presented as scientific evidence of their existence. At the same time this Church deems it heresy to present as scientific evidence indirect and ephemeral traces of the existence of alien beings.

The February 1996 Nova program on alien abductions was a Mass called to condemn the new heretics that dare to question the word of the Church.

These new heretics, John Mack and Budd Hopkins, join Galileo and many others in a long line of courageous pioneers who chose to report what they observed rather than what was deemed acceptable. John and Budd should feel honored by the attention that Nova has lavished on them. After all, Nova has not spent even a half-hour debunking the flatearth society or any other known fairy tale. There may be something here if Nova feels it is worth an hour of prime time to attack it.

Curiously, Nova's alien abduction Mass cannot be considered to be science, which requires an acceptance of all relevant data and a careful formulation of a defensible hypothesis to explain all the data. But it can be seen as propaganda, which begins with the conclusion and works backwards, excluding contradictory evidence. Nova seems oddly heretical by its own standards.

Nova clearly intended to support the conclusion that the entire alien abduction phenomenon is nonsense. The mundane, Church-approved, dogmatic explanation is that all of these cases are examples of unscientific methods, weak minds, hoaxes, publicity seekers, hallucinations, sleep disorders, suggestions from science fiction movies, and leading questions from ill-trained hypnotherapists.

Thus, cases involving the discovery of body scars and implants after abductions cannot be included, because psychological disorders do not leave physical evidence. Also excluded are cases such as The Allagash Abductions, which involve multiple experiencers reporting identical details, because group hallucinations are not in the dogma. Strong-minded, credible witnesses such as doctors, law officers and scientists are excluded because they cannot be assumed to have weak minds. Experiencers such as Michelle LaVigne, who recall all the details consciously, without the benefit of hypnotherapy, must also be exorcised, if the blame is to be laid on leading questions from hypnotherapists. Alien abduction cases such as those reported by John Mack from primitive aboriginal cultures, and cases such as Ida Kannenberg's abduction in 1940, which preceded the science fiction movies, are disallowed because the media cannot be blamed for planting suggestions in the minds of the experiencers. Finally, scientific data such as Dr. Courtney Brown's scientific remote viewing of Martians and Greys on earth, using replicable methods developed by the CIA to locate Soviet submarines, cannot be used because Science is expected to serve this Church, not reform it.

If you saw the Nova “Mass”, you know that all of these data sources were excluded. You also may have observed the special thanks given to Phillip Klass in the credits. He is a well known exorciser for the Church of Science. Donna Bassett, who purposely misled John Mack in order to discredit him, is married to a former coworker of Klass. Nova's decision to present Donna as John's innocent victim instead of as a cold coconspirator against him underscores the biased nature of this presentation.


Dr Crissey is Publisher of Wild Flower Press.

© 1996 Brian L. Crissey, Ph.D.

See also AKahn, Joseph P. “Altered 'UFO' Airs on 'Nova'” The Boston Globe, Feb 29, 1996