Alien implants: the new 'hard evidence.'

Science fiction author Whitley Strieber continues to promote the notion of extraterrestrial visitations. His Communion: A True Story (1987) told of his own close encounter - actually what psychologist Robert A. Baker has diagnosed as "a classic, textbook description of a hypnopompic hallucination" (or "waking dream") (Baker and Nickell 1992). Now, several money-making books later, Strieber offers Confirmation: The Hard Evidence of Aliens Among Us. The evidence is threefold: UFO sightings (yawn), close encounters (been there, done that), and - the hard evidence, quite literally - alien implants!

Implants are the latest rage in UFO circles, and Strieber marshals the diagnostic, radiographic, surgical, photographic, and analytic evidence that supposedly indicates - but admittedly does not prove - extraterrestrials are implanting devices in human beings. To put Strieber's claims into perspective, we should first look at the development of the implant concept.

The notion of induced mind/body control is pervasive, with paranormal entities typically having some means of monitoring mortals as a prelude to control. Examples range from mythological beings - like Cupid, whose magical arrows infected men's hearts with love, and Morpheus, who formed sleepers' dreams - to superstitious belief in angelic guidance, demonic possession, Voodoo hexes, and zombie slaves. Folklore told of abductions to fairyland from which people returned with addled wits or sapped vitality. Popular literature brought such examples as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1891) and the mesmerizing Svengali in George du Maurier's Trilby (1894). Science fiction helped develop the alien-takeover concept, with such movies as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). A 1967 Star Trek TV episode, "Errand of Mercy," featured a "mind-sifter," a device used by the alien Klingons to probe prisoners' thoughts during interrogations (Okuda and Okuda 1997).

Meanwhile, Kenneth Arnold's 1947 "flying saucer" report touched off the modern era of UFOs and with it an evolving mythology. By the 1950s "contactees" were claiming to receive messages from the Space People. Then in 1961 came the first widely publicized abduction case, that of Betty and Barney Hill. (Their psychiatrist concluded the couple had shared their dreams rather than having had an actual experience [Klass 1974]).

With the publicizing of the Hill case - notably by John G. Fuller's The Interrupted Journey in 1966 and NBC television's prime-time movie "The UFO Incident" in 1975 - claims of alien abductions and "medical" examinations began to proliferate. So did another phenomenon, the abduction guru: a self-styled alien researcher and often amateur hypnotist who elicits fantasy abduction tales from suitably imaginative individuals (Baker and Nickell 1992, p. 203).

Reports of alien implants may have begun with the alleged abduction of a Massachusetts woman, Betty Andreasson, which supposedly took place in early 1967. However, the case was not publicized widely until 1979 when Raymond E. Fowler published his book The Andreasson Affair. Andreasson, who seems to have had a predisposition to fantasize under hypnosis, claimed the aliens had removed an apparently implanted device, in the form of a spiked ball, by inserting a needle up her nose. Fowler speculated that the BB-size implant could have been "a monitoring device" (Fowler 1979, p. 191). About this time, the concept of "psychotronic technology" - i.e., mind control by means of physical devices - entered UFOlogy (Sachs 1980, pp. 200, 262).

Andreasson's abduction report was followed by that of a Canadian woman named Dorothy Wallis. She described a similar implant under hypnosis, which seemed to explain an earlier "compulsion" to meet with the aliens (Klass 1989, p. 122). When we appeared together on the Canadian television talk show program The Shirley Show (which aired April 15, 1993), I suggested that Mrs. Wallis's story appeared to imitate Andreasson's. She countered that her abduction came first, but I observed that she did not come forward until about 1983 and that Andreasson's much earlier publication gave the latter the stronger claim (Nickell 1995; Wray 1993).

In time, David Jacobs, a historian-turned-abduction-researcher, found the Andreasson/Wallis-type implant to be stereotypical among abductee claimants.

The object is as small as or smaller than a BB, and it is usually smooth, or has small spikes sticking out of it, or has holes in it. The function of this device is unknown: It might be a locator so that the targeted individual can be found and abducted; it might serve as a monitor of hormonal changes; it might facilitate the molecular changes needed for transport and entrance; it might facilitate communication . . . Sometimes nosebleeds occur after this procedure. Both child and adult abductees have seen physicians for nosebleed problems, and have discovered odd holes inside their noses. [Jacobs 1992, pp. 95-96]

Alas, Jacobs relates,

Several abductees have reported that a ball-shaped object either dropped out of their nose or was expelled when they blew their nose. All of these expulsions happened before they knew they had been abducted; in each case they thought they had inexplicably inhaled something and discarded the object or lost it. [p.96]