Budd Hopkins, author of Missing Time and Intruders, has written more extensively about the abduction phenomenon than just about anyone. Because he has so eloquently described the plight of the abductee, those who consider themselves part of this strange phenomenon are constantly sending him mail. Writer Paul McCarthy has excerpted some of these letters, which express the pain, sorrow, and abject terror of the abductee, below:
In the summer of 1966 I worked at a summer job in the mountains. On the last night of the job, I started driving back to the coast. I remember driving into a fog on the highway. The next thing I knew, I was passing through St. Louis on the afternoon of the next day. . . . This was followed by several days of confusion and terror. At one point I thought there was something wrong with my car. I left it at a garage and spent at least one night at a motel, where it seems to me a police car parked and shone its lights through my window for 15 minutes. It turned out that there was nothing wrong with my car, and I kept on going. When I finally got to the coast, I was in the early stages of a complete emotional breakdown. The symptoms included agoraphobia, fatigue, some neuromotor problems, and extreme depression. It went on for nearly four years.
It was the fall of 1968 when my friend and I decided to spend an evening away from our parents up on what we called "the aqueduct." It was an area behind our apartment building complex where huge power lines had been erected. It was secluded with plenty of trees on either side. There was a power substation on top of a hill, and this is where we saw an orange glow descend. We ran up the hill and to the best of my recollection saw a small round disc. It is from this stage on that my memory has become somewhat cloudy. The next thing we knew was that we were down behind one of the buildings (we never frequented this particular place) and we had somehow lost two hours of time. We looked up and saw another orange glow, only this time it was rising. I laughed a nervous little laugh and we both looked at each other and said, Oh, it's nothing, it's just a UFO. We said good-night immediately without mentioning it further. It was the last time we ever spoke about it. My friend was never the same after this experience and in a few short years had committed suicide. The next morning I woke up with what I now think was a "sunburn" on one side of my face, but at the time I thought it was an allergic reaction to something I had eaten. I also noticed a brown sore spot in my navel but, again, never correlated it to the experience, if indeed there had been one. This effect lasted for quite a few years.
Late in June this year I was awakened by Jason calling out to me: He sleeps in the next room. He screamed, "Mom, there are two aliens staring at me." Normally if ever the boys need me in the night my feet are on the ground before I'm awake, but despite the terror in his voice, I called out to him that it was only a dream and to go back to sleep. About thirty to sixty minutes later I heard him crying, and this time I went in to him. He was sitting up in bed. I cuddled him and he told me two aliens (his words) had stood by his bed and stared at him. They didn't speak, just stood there. There was a light behind them, so their shape was in shadow. One was taller than the other and they didn't move, just stared for ages. He was too terrified to move, he said. After a while they turned and walked away. Then he cried for me. Normally I would put it down to a bad dream except for his behavior the next day. He was tired first thing, and as I dropped him off at my sister's for two hours while I took Jimmie to an appointment, I thought he would play quietly or watch TV. However, by the time I got back to him he was laying on the floor crying with a bad headache. Also he seemed to have a sore groin. He had told my sister about the two visitors in the bedroom and drew a picture, insisting they were real and not part of a dream.
We were driving along a deserted road in complete darkness when we turned a bend in the road and came across a brightly lit object beside the road ahead. The object revealed itself to be nothing more than a farming tractor, or something similar, but as soon as I saw it from a distance of about two hundred yards I was absolutely frozen with terror, for no reason. My friend who was driving obviously had the same thoughts as he quickly brought the car to a halt beside the object before we both identified it (from about ten to fifteen yards) as being some sort of tractor. We often related the experience to others as an amusing incident, and to this day I've never mentioned it to my friend as a serious matter. However, as time has gone by, I'm still haunted by this event. It frightens me, and I have to admit that, but I don't know why. There was something about the way the object was lit, or perhaps the position it was parked in, that must have caused the astonishing reaction I had experienced. The question I want to put to you is if you know of any cases where UFOs have effectively disguised themselves to the onlooker as everyday objects? I hope this doesn't sound completely wild, but I'm hoping that you'll be able to tell me that this sort of thing has happened before and I'm not plain crazy! I often think about the encounter, especially when I'm alone or in bed. Sometimes I just feel concerned, but, more often than not, the thought of those few moments causes me to shiver, and regularly I start to cry. Right now I feel pretty silly even writing this letter, but I know that when I relive the encounter again, on my own, it will have the same effect, but why?
I became aware of this impression several years ago and it was so very vivid. and I cannot get it out of my mind. I decided it must have been something I had dreamed at one time, but it always seemed much more like a part of me, like a memory, than a dream, and how could this be? I have this in my memory all the time now, and I have pondered over it many, many times. This is the vision: Someone is taking me somewhere. I don't know where I am. I don't know who is with me, but I feel someone is with me. Perhaps only one person. There is no speaking at all during this whole thing. We come to a place. I don't know where this is. There seems to be a huge tank of some kind. I cannot even see the boundaries of it. I am in front of it. I cannot see the sides of it or the back of it because of the fluid. It is filled with a very dark, clear bluish-green liquid. Hanging inside of the liquid are scores of fetuses, in different phases of their growth. They are hanging on a cord, which is attached to their abdomen (umbilicus?). I cannot see where it is attached up above. I don't know where it is coming from. The fetuses are all hanging with their backs upward. They are facing the bottom of this tank. But they are suspended in this liquid, which seems to be thick, or gelatinous, in nature.
I remember an incident when I was about eight or nine. I had been sleeping in my bed: Julie was asleep across the room from me. My bed was near the backyard window. I could hear someone call me. I thought it was Julie, so I looked up and there was a thing behind the door. I started feeling sick (scared sick, I think) and I wanted to go to the bathroom and throw up. But the thing wouldn't let me past the door. I started to cry but I couldn't call my mom. Finally I knew I was going to be sick, and as I tried to call Mom, Julie woke up and I threw up. She called Mom for me and Mom came in and tried to get me to the bathroom, but I was so terrified to go past the door that she had to show me a number of times that there was nothing there. Finally she got me cleaned up and put me to bed. When I woke up the next morning I felt like I had a sore throat, so I sat up and blood ran out of my nose. Not bleeding, but like it had been just laying there. But I figure that it would have to have been recent or it would have coagulated. I had forgotten all about this incident until I read Intruders. Now I can't stop thinking about it.
When I was around five I remember a voice that would come to the side of my bed. I could never open my eyes to see it but it was there for around a week and it knew my name and would talk to me. I think it was a couple of years later that a ball of light came into my house and just traveled around. I was having a slumber party that night and it scared everyone so much that they all backed into a corner. Another time, looking out my bedroom window when I was a kid, I saw a bright light in the back of house. Staring at that light, I felt strange -- then I woke up on top of my covers with blood on my nightgown a bloody nose, but not on my bed.
(Originally appeared in OMNI Vol. 13, No. 3, December 1990)
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