Abductions in the Gingerbread House
by Dr. Karla Turner

World renowned UFO researcher Jacques Vallee has repeatedly referred to the similarities between UFO and abduction reports and the stories of folklore and fairy tales. I disagree with Dr. Vallee on many, many points of UFOlogy, but here I will grant that there is one fairy tale which does have something important to tell us about the alien abduction phenomenon. It is not, however, what Dr. Vallee might think.

The story of Hansel and Gretel presents a lesson that every abductee should heed. These innocent children, wandering lost and frightened in the forest, came upon a gingerbread house that seemed to offer them shelter and sustenance. The owner of the house, a wizened old woman, was frightening to them at first, but their hunger pushed the children to accept her offer to come inside and be fed. And so they entered the gingerbread house and promptly became the old woman's captives. Kept in cages, the two children were abundantly fed. It was not for their benefit, though. In fact, they were being fattened up for the oven! The deceptive nature of the gingerbread house and of the old woman's offer of food worked quite well.

It is the deceptive quality of this story that holds a warning for humans who are abducted by aliens. Like Hansel and Gretel, we are initially terrified by our encounter with aliens, but in too many cases, our fear is overcome by the words of our abductors and by the thoughts and experiences they present to us. I, too, am an abductee, and my quest to discover the nature of my own experiences led me into abduction research over the past four years. Working with many other abduction cases, I have learned just how basic the deception of alien actions can be.

My family and I also delved into our own experiences, both past and present. Barbara Bartholic, a dedicated UFO investigator from Tulsa, Oklahoma, worked closely with us and helped us fill in the gaps in our recollections of strange encounters through hypnotic regression. Ms. Bartholic, by the way, began her own research as an assistant to Jacques Vallee in cattle mutilation investigations, so her expertise in ufology is wide-ranging. I have recently written a book, Into the Fringe, about the startling and often disturbing results of our personal investigations, and it will be published by the Berkley Publishing Group in November 1992.

But my interest soon expanded past the merely personal, and for the past several years I have worked as Ms. Bartholic's research associate, exploring literally hundreds of sighting and encounter cases with her. And what I've learned through this work has raised far more questions than answers. In fact, it has taught me to be wary of those researchers who do claim to have answers. I have yet to hear of a single theory or explanation that accounts for all of the data. Some researchers have pointed out patterns of events in the abduction experience, such as the physical examination, the taking of sperm and ova, and the later presentation of a hybrid baby to the abductee. Other patterns include the training of the abductee in some way and the delivery of a warning of some upcoming global disaster. Yes, these events are frequently reported, as one researcher has said in boringly repetitious accounts, and it is tempting to think that the explanation for alien abductions may lie in these patterns. So the researchers announce that the problem is solved. The aliens are doing cross-breeding experiments, UFOlogists tell us. Never mind the overwhelming evidence against the viable commingling of different species. Or, we are told, the aliens are here to save us from destroying ourselves and our planet through violence, drug use, epidemic disease, pollution, and resource depletion. Never mind that these problems have grown worse, not better, since the ETs began visiting us.

Or, most infuriating of all, we are assured that there are no actual aliens, that our experiences spring from our own subconscious turmoil or from our need for fantasy fulfillment. Never mind that many abductees are young children, too young to be suffering from such psychological disturbances. Well, then, the resourceful researcher counters, the imagined aliens must spring from some collective human super-psyche that is mirroring our failures and dangers back to us. This particular theory adores the archetypal gray ET, because it resembles some sickly fetal form of humanity and must therefore be an objectified warning of what our species is in danger of becoming if we don't mend our ways. Never mind that many, many abductees have no dealing with grays, but instead are victimized by robust reptoids and insectoids. Not to mention the totally human-looking blond beauties and black-headed, black-robed clan with the widow's peak hairline.

No, too many researchers seem to find a theory and cling to it in spite of data that contradict it. And it is the ideas of these researchers that dominate ufology. But if the public had access to the raw data, to the first-hand reports of abductees, especially those unfamiliar with UFO-oriented books, magazines, and lecturers, they would find a much less neatly organized set of patterns. These "virgin" cases--people uncontaminated by ufological literature--supply a staggering picture of human-alien contact events.

What follows here is an overview of these "virgin" reports, a list of recurrent experiences that taken together gives us a close-up view of what the aliens are doing here on earth. This data doesn't tell us for certain just what sort of creatures the aliens are, or what their purpose here may be. But it does tell us what humans are experiencing and what they are observing in the actions and capabilities of the aliens. Every detail in the following list has been reported by more than one abductee, and in many cases the details have turned up quite frequently.

ABDUCTION "CHECKLIST"

If these reports can be believed--and there is no reason to doubt the honesty of the reporters--the abduction phenomenon includes the following details.



-- Aliens can alter our perception of our surroundings.

-- Aliens can control what we think we see. They can appear to us in any number of guises, and shapes.

-- Aliens can take us--our consciousness--out of our physical bodies, disable our control of our bodies, install one of their own entities, and use our bodies as vehicles for their own activities before returning our consciousness to our bodies.

-- Aliens can be present with us in an invisible state and can make themselves only partially visible.

-- Abductees receive marks on their bodies other than the well-known scoops and straight-line scars. These other marks include single punctures, multiple punctures, large bruises, three- and four-fingered claw marks, and triangles of every possible sort.

-- Females abductees often suffer serious gynecological problems after their alien encounters, and sometimes these problems lead to cysts, tumors, cancer of the breasts and uterus, and to hysterectomies.

-- Aliens take body fluids from our necks, spines, blood veins, joints such as knees and wrists, and other places. They also inject unknown fluids into various parts of our bodies.

-- A surprising number of abductees suffer from serious illnesses they didn't have before their encounters. These have led to surgery, debilitation, and even death from causes the doctors can't identify.

-- Some abductees experience a degeneration of their mental, social, and spiritual well-being. Excessive behavior frequently erupts, such as drug abuse, alcoholism, overeating, and promiscuity. Strange obsessions develop and cause the disruption of normal life and the destruction of personal relationships.

-- Aliens show a great interest in adult sexuality, child sexuality, and in inflicting physical pain on abductees.

-- Abductees recall being instructed and trained by aliens. This training may be in the form of verbal or telepathic lessons, slide shows, or actual hands-on instruction in the operation of alien technology.

-- Abductees report being taken to facilities in which they encounter not only aliens but also normal-looking humans, sometimes in military uniforms, working with the alien captors.

-- Abductees often encounter more than one sort of alien during an experience, not just the grays. Every possible combination of gray, reptoid, insectoid, blond, and widow's peak have been seen during single abductions, aboard the same craft or in the same facility.

-- Abductees--"virgin" cases--report being taken to underground facilities where they see grotesque hybrid creatures, nurseries of hybrid humanoid fetuses, and vats of colored liquid filled with parts of human bodies.

-- Abductees report seeing other humans in these facilities being drained of blood, being mutilated, flayed, and dismembered, and being stacked, lifeless, like cords of wood. Some abductees have been threatened that they, too, will end up in this condition if they don't cooperate with their alien captors.

-- Aliens come into homes and temporarily remove young children, leaving their distraught parents paralyzed and helpless. In cases where a parent has been able to protest, the aliens insist that "The children belong to us."

-- Aliens have forced their human abductees to have sexual intercourse with aliens and even with other abductees while groups of aliens observe these performances. In such encounters, the aliens have sometimes disguised themselves in order to gain the cooperation of the abductee, appearing in such forms as Jesus, the Pope, certain celebrities, and even the dead spouses of the abductees.

-- Children abductees sometimes show a new and obsessive interest in their own genitalia after alien encounters, saying that their abductors who come at night have been touching these parts of their bodies.

-- Aliens perform extremely painful experiments or procedures on abductees, saying that these acts are necessary but giving no explanation why. Abductees' eyes are painfully removed from the sockets, allowing the aliens to scrape the area or implant devices into the area before the eyeballs are replaced, for instance. Some abductees are subjected to painful constrictions, often around the head, chest and extremities. Painful genitalia and anal probes are performed, on children as well as adults.

-- Aliens make predictions of an imminent period of global chaos and destruction. They say that a certain number of humans- -and the number varies dramatically from case to case--will be "rescued" from the planet in order to continue the species, either on another planet or back on earth after the destruction is over. Many abductees report that they don't believe their alien captors and foresee instead a much more sinister use of the "rescued" humans.

In every instance from this list, there are multiple reports from unrelated cases, confirming that such bizarre details are not the product of a single deranged mind. These details are convincing evidence that, contrary to the claims of many UFO researchers, the abduction experience isn't limited to a uniform pattern of events. This phenomenon simply can't be explained in terms of cross-breeding experiments or scientific research into the human physiology.

SPIRITUALLY ENLIGHTENED?


And it becomes clear from these details that the beings who are doing such things can't be seen as spiritually enlightened, with the best interest of the human race in mind. Something else is going on, something far more painful and frightening, in many, many abduction encounters.

There is a theory current in ufological research that says abductees who perceive their experiences in a negative way only do so because they themselves aren't spiritually or psychically advanced. Persons with higher cosmic development have positive alien encounters, so the theory goes, and those who have painful or frightening experiences are merely spiritual Neanderthals. This is a pet theory of researchers who claim that aliens, whether objectively real or not, serve as "mirrors" of our spiritual nature, on an individual or a species-wide basis. Strieber has voiced this theory, for instance, in Majestic, where he says, "In the eyes of the others [the aliens], we who met them saw ourselves. And there were demons there."

Having worked with so many decent, honest, positively oriented abductees, however, I believe this theory is wrong. It is worse than wrong--it is despicable, as despicable as blaming a rape victim for the violence committed against her. This attitude leaves many abductees feeling doubly violated, first by the aliens who took them and then by the UFO researchers to whom they turn for explanations and help.

But it is easy to understand why such a theory would be so popular. Humans have a deep need to believe in the power of good. We need for the aliens to be a good force, since we feel so helpless in their presence. And we need for some superior force to offer us a hope of salvation, both personally and globally, when we consider the sorry state of the world.

I think the aliens know this about us--they know that we want and hope for them to be benevolent creatures--and they use our desire for goodness to manipulate us. What better way to gain our cooperation than to tell us that the things they are doing are for our own good? But looking at the actions, the results of alien interference such as the long list above. There is a great discrepancy between what we desire from them and what they are doing to us. Not all abduction reports are filled with frightening or painful events, of course. Many people say that their alien encounters felt benevolent, that their abductors treated them kindly or at least with a scientific detachment. Some abductees recall being told that they were "special," that they were "chosen," and that they have an important task to perform for the benefit of humanity. Given such a positive message, the abductees may ignore the fear and the pain of their encounters and insist to themselves and to others that a higher motive underlies the abduction experience. And, in some cases, all that an abductee remembers is a benevolent encounter and so has no reason to assume any negative action has occurred.

But intensive research shows that at the core of the human- alien interaction there is a clear pattern of deception. We know, for instance, that "screen memories" are often used to mask an alien abduction. Such accounts abound, in which a person sees a familiar yet out-of-place animal, like a deer or owl, a monkey or a rabbit, and then experiences a period of missing time. The person often awakens later to find a new, unexplained scar on his body. Uneasiness about the encounter will persist, however, and far different memories may start to surface in dreams or flashbacks, and then the person seeks help to explain the uneasiness. Quite often, hypnotic regression is used to uncover the events behind the "screen memory," and that is when a typical alien abduction surfaces.

The most recent research in which I've been involved has turned up yet a second sort of screening process. If it turns out to be accurate, then thousands of abduction cases are in urgent need of re-examination. The typical scenario of undergoing the regressive hypnosis usually results in penetration of the initial blocked memories.

The abductee then recalls an encounter, hitherto unremembered, such as undergoing a physical examination of some sort, perhaps having body tissues removed or having a gynecological exam. Other typical reports include the taking of sperm and ova, of being told of an important task to be carried out, or of receiving a warning of upcoming disaster.

And in most cases, both the abductee and the investigator come away from the hypnosis session feeling that they have discovered the truth about the experience. Rationalization leads them to believe that the aliens' purposes must be scientifically objective or benevolent. The less threatening and more benevolent the hypnotically recalled event seems, the more satisfied are the investigator and the abductee. "That wasn't so bad, now, was it? These beings are our friends, or at least they are not our enemies." And everyone goes away with a sense of relief. I have yet to hear of a researcher who actually questions the uncovered scenario.

But from several recent cases, it is apparent that these recovered memories may well also be yet another screen, masking events that are much more reprehensible. I will explain one such case, to make the point clear.

A STRANGE REPORT

A man in his late 40's came to us to explore several alien- related events in his life, and in the interview he told of a strange, although not apparently alien-oriented, episode that had haunted him since childhood. When he was ten years old, his grandmother came to visit in his home, and since the house was small, she shared his bed on the first night of her visit. During the night, the boy was awakened by a loud male voice. He couldn't understand what the voice was saying, but it sounded angry and was addressing the grandmother lying beside him.

The next morning, he asked his grandmother, "What was that voice in the bedroom last night?"

His grandmother, with tears in her eyes, pulled him tightly to her and said, "That was the devil." She said nothing more about the episode, but she did insist that her son take her back to her own home immediately. It was an unreasonable request, and her son tried to talk her out of it. But the grandmother was adamant, and finally her son agreed to take her home the following day.

The entire family made the trip of over a hundred miles back to the grandmother's farm, and within an hour of their arrival, the grandmother suffered a massive stroke and died. Ever since that event, the man had felt a heavy burden of guilt associated with his grandmother's death. Yet there was no conscious reason for him to have felt that way. The entire event was poignant and mystifying, but in all the alien encounters he had subsequently undergone, he had felt that the aliens were his friends and were helping him by expanding his psychic abilities.

A regression session was arranged, and in the course of the hypnosis, he was asked to look at that childhood experience. What he recalled was an abduction in which he and his grandmother were taken to a spacecraft in the company of reptilian aliens. He remembered the aliens telling his grandmother that they were interested in learning about her knowledge of medicinal herbs.

And they offered to exchange medical information of their own. They gave the boy and the grandmother a liquid to drink, explaining that it was beneficial and would make the grandmother feel young and attractive again. So both of them drank the liquid, and the man remembered seeing his grandmother indeed looking much younger. That was the extent of his recollection. Both he and Ms. Bartholic, who was conducting the regression, were puzzled by this, because there was nothing in the episode to account for the guilt he had felt about the grandmother's death. So Ms. Bartholic deepened the man's trance level and asked him to look at it again, with much clearer vision. And what he then recalled was much more disturbing.

The abduction, at first, followed his initial recollection. But when the liquid was drunk, he now remembered a very strong feeling of change in his body. And he saw that the grandmother didn't actually look younger. Instead, she was placed on a table and approached by one of the reptilian aliens who wanted to have intercourse with her. The liquid had acted as an aphrodisiac, yet the grandmother resisted and said that since her husband's death she would not have sex with anyone. The reptilian laughed and disappeared from the room momentarily. When he returned, he was accompanied by a man who looked exactly like the dead husband.

At this point, the grandmother agreed to have sex, but as the act was in progress, she suddenly realized that the image of her dead husband was a cruel illusion. It was actually the reptilian on top of her, and she cried out in great resistance for him to leave her alone. Once he was finished with her, he lifted up the little boy and placed him on top of the grandmother, forcing another sex act upon the both of them.

Then the grandmother was removed from the table and the little boy was victimized himself by the reptilian, forced to have anal and oral sex. The grandmother protested violently, pushing the reptilian away from her grandson and interposing her body between them. "By Jesus," she shouted, "you will not touch this boy!"

That must have been the wrong thing to say, because the reptilian became very angry and threatened her. "You will die for that!" he told her, and the two people were returned to the bedroom from which they'd been taken. The next morning, the grandmother told the little boy that the devil had been there the night before, and that was when she insisted upon being taken home. And, as it turned out, she did die immediately thereafter.

This, then, was the cause of the man's lifelong sense of guilt about her death. He had been forced to have sex with her, and her death had followed shortly after. But none of this story would have emerged if Ms. Bartholic had done as most investigators do and stopped the regression after uncovering the story about the exchange of medicinal knowledge.

There are other cases in our files that show a similar deception at work in the initial hypnotic recall. We cannot trust that first memory, it is clear, for like so much else in the abduction experience, there may well be further maskings of events.

Before we allow ourselves to believe in the benevolence of the alien interaction, we should ask, do enlightened beings need to use the cover of night to perform good deeds? Do they need to paralyze us and render us helpless to resist? Do angels need to steal our fetuses? Do they need to manipulate our children's genitals and probe our rectums? Are fear, pain and deception consistent with high spiritual motives?

FAIRY MAGIC

The proper name for fairy magic is "glamour", which is derived from the old

Scottish world glamerye.
As soon as they saw her weel faur'd face
They cast their glamourie o're her O!
- From an 18th century text
Katherine Briggs calls it "[generally] a mesmerism or enchantment cast over the senses, so that things were perceived or not perceived as the enchanter wished." The main magical powers of fairies included levitation, invisibility, and shape-changing. Few fairies in tradition actually have wings. Instead, many fairies use levitation of various sorts to travel about. Some smaller fairies will ride ragwort stems or bundles of grass. John Aubrey reports that one password these fairies used was 'Horse and Hattock'. This happened to work for mortals as well, for one schoolboy on hearing the phrase come from a swirling cloud of dust cried 'Horse and Hattock my hat!' and to his surprise his top leaped into the air. Fairies also would occasionally levitate buildings, castles, and churches if their locations offended them. Sometimes, they moved these to newer locations.

One poem from Berwickshire goes:

Lift one, lift a'
Baith at back and fore wa'--
Up and away wi' Langon House,
And set it down in Dogden Moss.

The fairies actually attempted this, but were thwarted by a hastily-uttered prayer. In Sylvia Townsend Warner's book, Kingdoms of Elfin, one faerie court actually moved the Welsh mountain Mynnydd Prescelly by a well-choreographed musical effort:

They began with their gathered breaths. At first, they sang in unison. Then they sang in thirds. As the power of song took hold of them, they threw in some spontaneous descants. When they realised that the song could be sung in canon, like Three Blind Mice and Tallis' Evening Hymn, their joy knew no bounds. They sang. They sang. The Poet's nephew, singing himself and conducting with both hands, led them from an ample forte to a rich fortissimo and tapered them down to a pianissimo expressivo and roused them again and again calmed them. Each sang, putting his whole heart into it as though everything depended on him, and at the same time felt the anonymous ardour of those singing with him. They sang so intently that they did not hear the ash trees rustle as though a solemn gale blew over them. When the Poet's nephew had brought them back to a unison and slowed them to a close, they looked round on each other as though on well-met strangers. Glorified and exhausted by a total experience, they ate an enormous supper, climbed into their ash trees, and slept till well past sunrise. It was as though they had woken in a new country. Rubbing their eyes, they stared at an unfamiliar aspect of day. The mountain was gone. Sylvia Townsend Warner, Kingdoms of Elfin Where the mountain went, they had no idea. Of course, this is a fictional account, but like most fiction, it has some basis in historical truth. Nearly every fairy has the power of invisibility in some form or another. Some fairies may become visible or invisible at will. Others may only be visible by night, and some only by the light of the noonday. But there are often ways to make the invisible visible.

There are several ways to see past a fairy's shroud of invisibility. Sometimes wearing one's coat turned inside-out will enable one to see into the Middle Kingdom. Occasionally closing one's right eye and peering through one's left is sufficient. Wearing a posy of primroses or carrying a four-leafed clover can also be effacious. There are also certain places where one may stand in order to gain vision of fairies, but these are often dangerous at best. For instance, one may stand inside of a fairy ring, or touch certain standing stones. The surest means to see invisible fairies is to apply fairy ointment to one or both of one's eyes. The earliest mention of this occurs in the 13th-century writings of Gervase of Tilbury. Click here to read one account concerning such an ointment, as recounted by Robert Hunt.

In the recent (and brilliant) novel by Midori Snyder, The Flight of Michael McBride, it is through the use of fairy ointment that the young hero's fairy heritage is first revealed to him.

Fairy Raids


The Gaelic belief recognizes no Fairyland or realm different from the earth's surcface on which men live and move. The dwellings are underground, but it is on the natural face of earth the Fairies find their sustenance, pasture their cattle, and on which they forage and roam.

The seasons on which their festivities are held are the last night of every quarter (h-uile latha ceann raidhe), particularly the nights before Beltane, the first of summer, and Hallowmas, the first of winter. On these nights, on Fridays, and on the last night of the year, they are given to leaving home, and taking away womsoever of the human race they find helpless, or unguarded and unwarey. They may be encountered any time, but on these stated occasions men are to be particularly on their guard against them.

On Fridays they obtrusively enter houses, and have even the impudence, it is said, to lift the lid off the pot to see what the family have on the fire for dinner. Any Fairy story, told on this day, should be prefixed by saying, `a blessing attend their departing and travelling! this day is Friday and they will not hear us' (Beannachd nan siubhal 's nan isneachd! 'se 'n diugh Di-haoine 's cha chluinn iad sinn). This prevents Fairy will-will coming upon the narrator for anything he may chance to say. No one should call the day by its proper name of Friday ( Di-haoine), but `the day of yonder town' (latha bhatl' ud thall). The Fairies do not like to hear the day mentioned, and if anyone is so unlucky as to use the proper name, their wrath is directed elsewhere by the bystander adding `on the cattle of yonder town' (air cro a bhail' ud thall), or `on the farm of So-and-so,' mentioning anyone he may have a dislike to The fear of Fairy wrath also prevented the sharpening of knives on this day.

They are said to come always from the west. They are admitted into houses, however well guarded otherwise, by the little hand-made cake, the last of the baking (bonnach beag boise), called the Fallaid bannock, unless there has been a hole put through it with the finger, or a piece is broken off it, or a live coal is put on top of it (note 6); by the water in which men's feet have been washed; by the fire, unless it be properly `raked' (smaladh), i.e. covered up to keep it alive for the night; or by the band of the spinning wheel, if left stretched on the wheel.

The reason assigned for taking water into the house at night was that the Fairies would suck the sleeper's blood if they found no water in to quench their thirst. The water in which feet were washed, unless thrown out, or a burning peat were put in it, let them in, and was used by them to plash about in (gun loireadh fhein ann) all night. Unless the band was taken off the spinning wheel, particularly on the Saturday evenings, they came after the inmates of the house had retired to rest and used the wheel. Sounds of busy work were heard, but in the morning no work was found done, and possibly the wheel was disarranged. (note 7) On the last night of the year they are kept out by decorating the house with holly; and the last handful of corn reaped should be dressed up as a Harvest Maiden (Maighdean Bhuan), and hung up in the farmer's house to aid in keeping them out till next harvest.

Fairies Stealing Women and Children


Some seventy or eighty years ago the herdsman who had charge of the cattle on his pasture, went to a marriage in the neighbouring village of Balephuill (mud-town), leaving his mother and a young child alone in the house. The night was wild and story; there was heavy rain, and every pool and stream was more than ordinarily swollen. His mother sat waiting his return, and two women, whom she knew to be Fairies, came to steal the child. They stood between the outer and inner doors and were so tall their heads appeared above the partition beam. One was taller than the other. They were accompanied by a dog, and stood one on each side, having a hold of an ear and scratching it. Some say there was a crowd of `little people' behind to assist in taking the child away. For security the woman placed it between herself and the fire, but her precautions were not quite successful. From that night the child was slightly fatuous, `a half idiot' (leth oinseach). The old woman, it is said, had the second sight.

A shepherd, living with his wife in a bothy far away among the hills of Mull, had an addition to his family. He was obliged to go for assistance to the nearest houses, and his wife asked him, before leaving her and her babe alone, to place the table beside the bed, and a portion of the various kinds of food in the house on it, and also to put the smoothing-iron below the front of the bed and the reaping-hook ( buanaiche) in the window. Soon after he had left the wife heard a suppressed muttering on the floor and a voice urging some one to go up and steal the child. The other answered that butter from the cow that ate the perlwort (mothan) was on the table, that iron was below the bed, and the `reaper' in the window, how could he get the child away. As the reward of his wife's providence and good sense the shepherd found herself and child safe on his return.

A man in Morvern, known by the nickname of the `Marquis' (a mor'aire), left a band of women watching his wife and infant child. On returning at night, he found the fire gone out, and the women fast asleep. By the time he had rekindled the fire he saw a Banshi entering and making for the bed where his wife and child were. He took a faggot from the fire and threw it at her. A flame gleamed about his eyes and he saw the Fairy woman no more. His wife declared that she felt at the time like one in a nightmare (trom-a-lidhe); she heard voices calling upon her to go out, and felt an irresistable inclination to obey.

A woman from Rahoy (Ra-thuaith) on Loch Sunartside was taken with her babe to Ben Iadain (Beinn Iadain), a lofty hill in the parish of Morvern, rising to a height of above 2000 feet, and at one time of great note as an abode of the Fairies. Her husband had laid himself down for a few minutes' rest in the front of the bed, and fallen asleep. When he awoke his wife and child were gone. They were taken, the woman afterwards told, to the `Black Door' (a chomhla dha), as the spot forming the Fairy entrance into the interior of the mountain is called. On entering, they found a large company of men, women, and children. A fair-haired boy among them came and warned the woman not to eat any food the Faiires might offer, but to hide it in her clothes. He said they had got his own mother to eat this foot, and in consequence he could not now get her away.

Finding the food offered her was slighted, the head Fairy sent a party to bring a certain man's cow. They came back saying they could not touch the cow as its right knee was resting on the plant bruchorcan (dirk grass). The were sent for another cow, but they came back saying they could not touch it either, as the dairymaid, after milking it, had struck it with the shackle or cow-spancel (burach). That same night the woman appeared to her husband in his dreams, telling him where she was, and that by going for her and taking the black silk handkerchief she wore on her marriage day, with three knots tied upon it, he might recover her. He tied the knots, took the handkerchief and a friend with him, entered the hill at the Black Door, and recovered his wife and child. The white-headed boy accompanied them for some distance from the Black Door, but returned to the hill, and is there still in all probability.

Another wife was taken from the neighbourhood of Castle Lionnaig, near Loch Aline (Loch Aluinn, the pretty loch), in the same parish, to the same hill. She was placed in the lap of a gigantic hag, who told her it was useless to attempt escaping; her arms would close round her

"As the ivy to the rock,
And as the honeysuckle to the tree;
As the flesh round the bone,
And as the bone round the marrow."

("Mar an eidheann ris a chreig
's mar an iadh-shlat ris an fhiodh,
Mar an fheoil mun chnaimh
'S mar an cnaimh mun smior.")

A man in Balemartin, on the south side of Tiree (air an leige deas), whose wife had died in childbed, was sitting one night soon after with a bunch of keys in his hands. He saw his wife passing and repassing him several times. The following night she came to him in his dreams, and reproached him for not having thrown the bunch of keys at her, or between her and the door, to keep the Fairies from taking her back with them. He asked her to come another night, but she said she could not, as the company she was with was removing that night to another brugh far away.

Another, somewhere on the mainland of Argyllshire, suspected his wife had been stolen by the Fairies, hauled her by the legs from the bed, through the fire, and out at the door. She there became a log of wood, and serves at the threshold of a barn in the place to this day.

A woman, taken by the Fairies, was seen by a man, who looked in at the door of a brugh, spinning and singing at her work.

A wife, taken in childbed, came to her husband in his sleep, and told him that, by drawing a furrow thrice round a certain hillock sunwise ( deiseal) with the plough, he might recover her. He consulted his neighbours, and in the end it was deemed as well not to attend to a dream of one's sleep (bruadar cadail). He consequently did not draw the furrow, and never recovered his wife.

A child was taken by the Fairies from Killichrenan (Cill-a-Chreunain), near Loch Awe, to the shi-en in Nant Wood (Coill' an Eannd). It was got back by the father drawing a furror round the hillock with the plough. He had not gone far when he heard a cry behind him, and on looking back found his child lying in the furrow.

: A trampling as of a troop of horses came round a house, in which a woman lay in childbed, and she and the child were taken away. At the end of seven years her sister came upon an open Fairy hillock, and thoughtlessly entered. She saw there her lost sister, with a child in her arms, and was warned by her, in the lullaby song to the child, to slip away out again.

"Little sister, little loving sister,
Rememberest thou the night of the horses?
Seven years since I was taken,
And one like me was never seen.
Ialai horro, horro,
Ialai horro hi."

("A phiuthrag, 's a phiuthrag chaidreach,
An cuimhne leat oidhche nan capull?
Seachd bliadhn' on thuagadh as mi,
'S bean mo choltais riamh cha-n fhacas.
Ialai horro, horro,
Ialai horro hi.")



Here are some great UFO quotes that shed light on the deceptive nature of the "alien" presence.

"But the UFO phenomenon simply does not behave like extraterrestrial visitors. It actually molds itself in order to fit a given culture."
-John Ankerberg, The Facts on UFOs and Other Supernatural Phenomena, p. 10

"Human beings are under the control of a strange force that bends them in absurd ways, forcing them to play a role in a bizarre game of deception."
-Dr. Jacques Vallee, Messengers of Deception, p. 20

"We are dealing with a multidimensional paraphysical phenomenon which is largely indigenous to planet earth."
-Brad Steiger, [cited in] Blue Book Files Released in Canadian UFO Report, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1977, p. 20

"One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships."
-Arthur C. Clarke, New York Times Book Review, 07/27/75

"There seems to be no evidence yet that any of these craft or beings originate from outer space."
-Gordon Creighton, Official 1992 Flying Saucer Review Policy Statement

"A large part of the available UFO literature is closely linked with mysticism and the metaphysical. It deals with subjects like mental telepathy, automatic writing and invisible entities as well as phenomena like poltergeist [ghost] manifestation and 'possession.' Many of the UFO reports now being published in the popular press recount alleged incidents that are strikingly similar to demonic possession and psychic phenomena."
-Lynn E. Catoe, UFOs and Related Subjects: USGPO, 1969; prepared under AFOSR Project Order 67-0002 and 68-0003

"UFO behaviour is more akin to magic than to physics as we know it... the modern UFOnauts and the demons of past days are probably identical."
-Dr. Pierre Guerin, FSR Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 13-14

"The UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely minor variations of the age-old demonological phenomenon..."
-John A. Keel, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, p. 299

"Studies of flying saucer cults repeatedly show that they are part of a larger occult social world."
-Stupple & McNeece, 1979 MUFON UFO Symposium Proceedings, p. 49

"The 'medical examination' to which abductees are said to be subjected, often accompanied by sadistic sexual manipulation, is reminiscient of the medieval tales of encounters with demons. It makes no sense in a sophisticated or technical framework: any intelligent being equipped with the scientific marvels that UFOs possess would be in a position to achieve any of these alleged scientific objectives in a shorter time and with fewer risks."
-Dr. Jacques Vallee, Confrontations, p. 13

"The symbolic display seen by the abductees is identical to the type of initiation ritual or astral voyage that is imbedded in the [occult] traditions of every culture...the structure of abduction stories is identical to that of occult initiation rituals...the UFO beings of today belong to the same class of manifestation as the [occult] entities that were described in centuries past."
-Dr. Jacques Vallee citing the extensive research of Bertrand Meheust [Science-Fiction et Soucoupes Volantes (Paris, 1978); Soucoupes Volantes et Folklore (Paris, 1985)], in Confrontations, p. 146, 159-161

"[The occultist] is brought into intelligent communication with the spirits of the air, and can receive any knowledge which they possess, or any false impression they choose to impart...the demons seem permitted to do various wonders at their request."
-G.H. Pember, Earth's Earliest Ages and Their Connection with Modern Spiritualism and Theosophy (1876), p. 254

"These entities are clever enough to make Strieber think they care about him. Yet his torment by them never ceases. Whatever his relationship to the entities, and he increasingly concludes that their involvement with him is something 'good,' he also remains terrified of them and uncertain as to what they are."
-John Ankerberg, The Facts on UFOs and Other Supernatural Phenomena, p. 21

"I became entirely given over to extreme dread. The fear was so powerful that it seemed to make my personality completely evaporate... 'Whitley' ceased to exist. What was left was a body and a state of raw fear so great that it swept about me like a thick, suffocating curtain, turning paralysis into a condition that seemed close to death...I died and a wild animal appeared in my place."
-Whitley Strieber, Communion, p. 25-26

"Increasingly I felt as if I were entering a struggle that might even be more than life and death. It might be a struggle for my soul, my essence, or whatever part of me might have reference to the eternal. There are worse things than death, I suspected... so far the word demon had never been spoken among the scientists and doctors who were working with me...Alone at night I worried about the legendary cunning of demons ...At the very least I was going stark, raving mad."
-Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 44-45

"I wondered if I might not be in the grip of demons, if they were not making me suffer for their own purposes, or simply for their enjoyment."
-Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 172

"I felt an absolutely indescribable sense of menace. It was hell on earth to be there [in the presence of the entities], and yet I couldn't move, couldn't cry out, couldn't get away. I'd lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies. Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy and dark and sinister. Of course they were demons. They had to be. And they were here and I couldn't get away."
-Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 181

"Why were my visitors so secretive, hiding themselves behind my consciousness. I could only conclude that they were using me and did not want me to know why...What if they were dangerous? Then I was terribly dangerous because I was playing a role in acclimatizing people to them."
-Whitley Strieber, Transformation, p. 96