David M. Jacobs, Ph.D., is associate professor of history at Temple University and became interested first in the UFO question, then in particular on the matter of "UFO abductions."
He told in his first book on the topic about Melissa Bucknell, a 22 years old real estate agent who was sent to him in 1986 by abduction expert Bud Hopkins, as she lived in Philadelphia, nearer to Jacobs. She told him that she has "dream-like memories" of encountering strange little beings examining her, and that she suspected that it was memories of alien abductions.
She was the first alleged abductee that Jacobs put into a state of hypnosis to "recover memories" of alien abductions. She has already been submitted to this methodology previously, and now underwent 30 more sessions with David Jacobs.
The sessions brought that when she was six and playing in a field behind her house with a friend, and before she knew she was transported in a UFO by aliens. Her clothes were removed and a physical examination was performed including genitals probed with a needle-like instruments, and the feeling some sort of implant was inserted near her left ovary. In one session she tells about a "gross" baby she didn't want to look at but the aliens didn't listen.
In the next years she was convinced that aliens abducted her every night. Jacobs decided to set up a video recording equipment in her bedroom, but every time the video was recording, she was not abducted, while she said she was abducted at times when the video was off or in another room.
At one point Jacobs took her to the hospital because she has a gynecological pain, and the doctor and medical personal were puzzle because ultrasounds showed that she had some unidentified organic lump near an ovary. She said she was certain that it was an alien implant. A pregnancy test was performed but she was not pregnant. she first vehemently refused any further examination and did not go to her next appointment a week later for a second examination, eventually Jacobs convinced her to see the doctor again a month later, and the lump was not there, a "hollow" had replaced it.
At another point, she had some marks on a shoulder; which could have been anything apparently, and stains on her nightshirt at a place that did not match with the marks. Nothing conclusive resulted from the examination of the marks and stains.
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[Ref. dj1:] DAVID JACOBS:
David Jacobs indicates that Melissa Bucknell, 26, came to his house in August 1986. she was a real estate agent who had "dreamlike recollections" of strange little beings examining her and suspected that was abducted by aliens, and wanted to be hypnotized to learn more about it. She had contacted Bud Hopkins but because she lived in Philadelphia, Hopkins referred her to Jacobs.
David Jacobs says it was easy to hypnotize her because she had been hypnotized before.
In a first session, she described being 6 and playing in a field behind her house with a friend, and before she knew she was transported in a UFO by aliens. Her clothes were removed and a physical examination was performed including genitals probed with a needle-like instruments, and the feeling some sort of implant was instered near her left ovary. Jacobs indicate that it came spontaneously and was very similar to what Hopkins had already recovered from her using hypnosis. He indicates he did not know what to do with the material and did not know if it was true and could only note it down.
In early 1987, she called Jacobs again to report that something must have happened the night before because she found marks on her back and blood on her nightshirt. But examination showed that it was not blood because it did not have the correct color and was rather dark orange. The marks on her body were on the shoulders and were not puncture marks or scratch marks, there was no scab or blood and the location did not match the location of the stains of the nightshirt.
Apparently in later hypnosis sessions, she described a baby she wanted to do nothing with and the aliens did not insist. Jacobs asked id the baby was big or small, if it was a human baby, if it has normal eyes, if they took it away. Melissay said nothing on the size, said that the baby was gross, ugly like the little creature, that she wanted it away, does not want to look at it. When Jacobs asked if they listened she said they did not.
The table at the end of his book indicates that Melissa Bucknell underwent 30 sessions of hypnosis.
[Ref. ws1:] WILLY SMITH:
Dr Willy Smith wrote a review of David Jacob's book "Secret Life", and wrote that although he is not insinuating that the investigator influenced his witnesses, the possibility cannot be ignored, as the one-on-one contacts extended over lengthy periods of time. He says that as an example, "Melissa Bucknell" had 31 hypnotic sessions, and since each session lasted between 3 and 5 hours, a conservative estimate of the contact time yields 90 hours, more than sufficient for two persons to know and influence each other, even if unconsciously. To the 90 hours, he notes that one must add the intercourse necessary to set up a TV camera and the numerous telephone contacts.
[Ref. mb1:] MARIE-THERESE DE BROSSES:
Exposing the approach of the question of abductions by David Jacobs, the author indicates that the latter decided that the proof of their reality could be obtained by the use of video cameras in the abductees bedroom, Jacobs saying that "the camera prevents the aliens from keeping the abduction secret and in some cases is able to anticipate the experience."
The author indicates that Jacobs says that Melissa Bucknell, who was abducted almost daily, had this device set up in her bedroom, and since then there were no more abduction, and the recordings show her sleeping in her bed.
One morning when she felt she had been visited, the checking of the video showed nothing. Jacobs concluded that this was normal, because the camera was programmed to record up to 6 a.m. and Melissa, who had gone to bed very late, had slept until midday, and that "the investigation revealed that the abduction took place between 6 a.m. and midday", according to Jacobs.
A few weeks later, Melissa is abducted again, but that night, obstructed by the noise of the neighbors, she had slept in her living room, out of the monitoring of the camera.
Marie-Thérèse de Brosses does not hide her amazement of discovering that Jacobs is by no means discouraged by the absence of result of his experience and that he does not conclude that abductions actually do not take place: instead he says that the aliens manage to avoid the cameras; if the camera only films the alleged abductee sleeping, it is because the abduction occurred outside the scope of the camera or when it is stopped.
She notes:
"Such a thought process is fascinating. The use of a recording camera is based on the conviction, already evoked, that abductions are physically perpetrated and the abductees bodies are captured. If one refers to his concept of aliens controlling invisibility, Jacobs hoped that the objective would be to record the dematerialization of the abductee. However, he claims success, not failure. That this enthralling moment is not filmed constitutes for him a kind of a contrario proof that an abduction really took place: the aliens manipulated the witness, by forcing her to disconnect the camera, or to move out."
[Ref. jh1:] JOHN HARNEY:
John Harney indicates that Jacobs tried to do something to resolve the matter of the disbelief in the reality of abductions, with rather amusing results. As many people are, allegedly, frequently abducted from their bedrooms, he decided to make use of video cameras to try to catch the aliens in the act.
The abductee, Melissa Bucknell, slept with a video camera connected to a VCR pointed at her bed, and there were no abductions for several nights until one morning when she slept late and she was abducted after the tape ran out.
On another occasion she slept on the living room couch to get away from the noise of her neighbors arguing upstairs - and was again abducted.
[Ref. dj2:] DAVID JACOBS:
David Jacobs indicates that Melissa Bucknell was the first abductee he placed under hypnosis. He says she was 27 years old and intermittently sexually active. In the hypnotic regressions, she had talked about having "implants" placed in her during her abductions.
One morning in March 1987, she awoke with gynecological pain so severe that she was having trouble sitting and told Jacobs that she was now certain the aliens had put an "implant" in her. Jacobs notes that his own research had shown that implants were usually placed in the nose or an ear. Jacobs immediately took her to gynecologist Dr. Daniel Treller, who agreed to see her on an emergency basis, and confirmed that Melissa's pelvic area was very tender. He ordered an ultrasound and the ultrasound team quickly found an anomaly, at the right side of her right ovary, not touching it, there was a small mass of some sort that looked "organic" and was not supposed to be there.
The ultrasound team and Treller were baffled as none of them had ever seen anything quite like this before. They suspecting an unusual ectopic pregnancy, and Treller ordered a blood test to determine if Melissa was pregnant, but she was not.
Melissa Bucknell insisted that it was an alien "implant" and extremely stubbornly insisted that she did not want it to be removed or disturbed it an any way. She forbid that it got touched. So Dr. Treller suggested she comes back in a week to see if the mass had changed or "grown." When Melissa and Jacobs left the hospital, she said that she will never go back to the hospital, despite the pain it was causing.
For the next several weeks Jacobs tried to convince her to return for another ultrasound but she refused, finally agreeing a month later. She underwent another examination and the ultrasound screen showed the space where the mass had been, but the mass was gone. Dr. Trelter was puzzled and said that the problem appeared to be "resolving itself."
Jacobs says that in his opinion the aliens had been growing a baby into her in an extrauterine hollow, and thus the pregnancy hormones are camouflaged and pregnancy tests fail.
[Ref. js1:] JEAN SIDER:
Jean Sider wrote a three parts article in the ufology magazine LDLN about abductions not being extraterrestrial but "diabolical" and writes that "the hypnotic regressions on the abducted people show" that the kidnappers are also interested in the young children, "especially little girls: according to David Jacobs, Melissa Bucknell was abducted when she was six years old, and an implant was placed in its left ovary."
"Hypnosis in an indispensable tool in unlocking the memories of an abduction. ... It is easy for a hypnotists to ask (consciously or inadvertently) leading questions that steer an abductee into an answer that might not reflect reality. This can be a problem for suggestible subjects. confabulation, or the unconscious invention or filling of memories, can become an easy way of providing information to the eager hypnostist-investigator. In hypnosis, even asking question about a specific event can put pressure on the subject to invent details of that event to provide details to those questions. ... The hypnotized person might unconsciously invent information about an abduction because that is what is expected."
David E. Jacobs, in "Secret Life", [dj1], page 320.
A particular problem with the alleged alien abduction cases is that they are generally not presented in a suitable way by the specialists who study them. Instead of being presented in a coherent unit, in a case file, they are scattered by bits in series of long books aimed at the general public, and it is extremely tedious to seek the bits here and there. Thus, for almost each case evoked by David Jacobs, it is necessary to read again entire books to gather the pieces of the puzzle, and it is not obvious that they were all provided. I tried to do this in the summary of the case at the beginning of this file.
Another problem is that it is obviously rather difficult to classify such a file at any given date and a given location. Concerning the date, all that is known as is that it all starts when Melissa Bucknell is six years old, and that she is 26 years old in 1986, which puts the beginnings in 1966; no precise date is given for any of the following experiences. The place is not indicated any more than by a note that she resides in Philadelphia in 1986. My file is thus so placed, but is advisable not to lose sight of the fact that I could just as well put it in year 1986 at an unknown location.
It is not possible to be certain whether the name "Melissa Bucknell" is a pseudonym or a true name. It would be obviously surprising that that was a true name, but in his book, Jacobs notes explicitly that the name is not published for some of the cases, which would let suppose that when the name is published, it is the true name.
A very striking thing from the start is that Jacobs indicates 30 sessions of hypnotic regression with Melissa Bucknell, that is to say the 90 hours according to Dr.'s Smith, but the described material is of extreme poverty. Only some lines are transcribed, and are very vague. For example, when Jacobs ask whether the "baby" be alien or human, Melissa Bucknell does not answer really clearly by a yes or a no, but rather shares a feeling of rejection of the baby, asks that one puts it away as it is "gross" to look at. She does not answer either on the question of the baby's size. No descriptions of the purported aliens or their UFO or anything related is provided.
It is often claimed that abductions experts do not influence the witnesses by putting directed questions; but the transcription does shows that questions are asked, that the story does not emerge spontaneously. When Jacobs indicates that in the first session, things emerged spontaneously, it should be noted that he also says that Melissa Brucknell had already attended hypnosis sessions before, perhaps at Bud Hopkins' - the information on this subject is not clear. If one takes into account that 90 hours in 30 meetings take place, it is perfectly obvious that at one time or another, some bits of what is said would fit any direction coming from the nature of the questions put.
Concerning what Melissa Bucknell called bloodstains on her nightshirt, Jacobs clearly shows an apparently adverse opinion on their nature: not blood. In his book, he mentions analyses which failed to identify exactly the nature of these stains, but it is not possible to determine which cases of stains this was about exactly. He mentions several cases, of stains that are only superficially similar, presented by several abductees precisely following this case, as if the stains had been discussed in an abductees' group meetings, and that several among them then discovered stains too. It remains my duty to locate again a TV documentary I once saw about such a story: the authors of the documentary had heard several alleged abuctees presentins their cases of mystery stains, and the show undertakes to contact analysis laboratories, whom, without being able to exactly determine what the stains were, explained that is was not organic, but probably some cleaning products or medicinal products, adding that to determine the exact brands would require large funding since there are thousands of chemical products of close but various compositions. On this point, it seems that Jacobs remained judiciously careful.
On at least two points, Jacobs uses a defective logic to insert the case in the theoretical framework he proposed:
When Jacobs decides to set up video cameras, indeed, methodologically good science is attempted, with a hypothesis to be tested: if the videos recorded the aliens, it would go in the direction of real alien abductions, if the video recordings show nothing, it would require another explanation, for example psychological. Jacobs must be congratulated for this experience, all the more obviously to be attempted since some of the abductees claimed to be abducted every night; such was the case of Melissa Bucknell. But once the negative result obtained, Jacobs leaves the field of rational logic to enter in the realms of wild post-hoc speculation: the cameras do not record anything because abductees are only abducted when the cameras are not recording. A psychologist would talk about paranoid reasoning there: "I cannot prove it to you, precisely because 'they' do not leave evidence."
A extra-uterine pregnancy releases the same pregnancy hormones in blood as a normal pregnancy and pregnancy tests are thus valid; this is why Dr. Treller used these tests. Let us recall that David Jacobs is a doctor in History and not in Medicine, and let us note that we have a curious reasoning again, in which a negative result is interpreted by making as if the scenario that the result failed to prove was proven altogether: "if the test of pregnancy fails, she is pregnant all the same, because the aliens know how to ruin the test."
In general, it appears that Melissa Bucknell's case was not thoroughly investigated. Rather than to put forth a personal interpretation, it would have been necessary for example to photograph the shoulder's "marks" carefully, to seek their possible origin (scratches by mattress springs a night when she was not in the usual bed, for example? Why not?), to show these marks to a professional M.D., It would have been necessary to maintain a precise journal of all events, and publish it. It would have been necessary to be interested in and document the statements relating to the initial memories, described as "dreamlike" memories, of the alleged event at age six, to question the family, to indicate if this also came from hypnosis sessions we are told she had already followed previously. It would have been necessary to document seriously and to follow up on the gynecological problem, which does not seem that strange, but unfortunately alleged witness refuses investigation. It would have been necessary to be interested in her readings: did she, like many other alleged abductees, simply had some experience of hypnagogic hallucination in the sleep in childhood, and reinterpret it thereafter as possible alien abductions because of reading of books of the Bud Hopkins or Whitley Strieber kind? Can anyone, by the way, even without really being interested in it, escape from the "abduction" imagery in the years 1986?
Lastly, how can it be thought that hypnosis in such a context could not result in so-called memories of alien abductions, mixed with other topics possibly, but with nothing to differentiate whether they are memories of real events, or memories of forgotten dreams, or memories of readings or vision of movie scenes, science-fiction serials, or alien abduction TV documentaries? (*) Clearly in this case, there is nothing to defend that the hypnosis-recovered material is about real events, and all attempts to collect positive evidence - video survey, examinations of marks on the shoulder, stains, medical problems, are really corroborating a real alien abduction.
(*) Contrary to David Jacobs and others, I by no means think that alleged abductees "invent", even unconsciously, "false" memories; everyone has enough "true" memories of readings, usually forgotten dreams, usually forgotten sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations, "true" memories of movies, science fiction, abductions documentaries, talks on aliens, to constitute the "material recovered by hypnosis", which is thus by no means "invented", but indeed "truthfully recovered" - it is the demonstration of they are real events that is missing.
| Id: | Topic: | Severity: | Date noted: | Raised by: | Noted by: | Description: | Proposal: | Status: |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data | Severe | December 29, 2007 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Fragmentary and meager data. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 2 | Ufology | Severe | December 29, 2007 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | No conscious memories. Case rests only on repeated use of hypnosis. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 3 | Ufology | Severe | December 29, 2007 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Single witness, profile not described, possible pseudonym used. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 4 | Ufology | Severe | December 29, 2007 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Insufficient data: dates, places, descriptions of entities, of UFO, etc. | Help needed. | Opened. |
| 5 | Ufology | Severe | December 29, 2007 | Patrick Gross | Patrick Gross | Negative evidence: no other witness despite abductions every night, no abduction when video recording on, no positive on marks and stains. | Help needed. | Opened. |
Possible hypnagogic incidents turned into alien abductions via hypnosis.
* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.
| Main Author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Created/Changed By: | Date: | Change Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | December 29, 2007 | Creation, [dj1], [ws1], [mb1], [jh1], [dj2], [js1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | December 29, 2007 | First published. |
