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The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

in the Abduction Phenomenon: Rebirthing
within the Psyche and the Psychosomatic
Imagination
Robert J. Williams

This paper is concerned with an investigation of mental states (the

dharmas of skilful and unskillful states of mind) which in Buddhist
practice form part of the developmental process called the seven
factors of enlightenment.1 Investigations of this kind are fundamental
as an aid to improving motivation and action (ethical conduct) and the
development of a more constructive experience during meditation.
There is an increasing rapport between some schools of Psychology
and Buddhism in the study of human consciousness as the ‘science’
of the experience of being.2 This mirroring is most evident in some
contemporary approaches to psychotherapy.3 The focus in such
cases is an increasing self-awareness of one’s inner processes
through ‘insightful’ interpretation of the imagistic dialogue occurring
between the conscious and unconscious processes that form our
embodiment.

According to Jung image is psyche.4 Psyche (cognition, memory,

imagination) is experience. Given sufficient development of self-
awareness we experience our being as both evolving archetypal
process and as the particular interpretation of that process that we
recognize as our own individuality (our own consciousness of being
located in a particular time and place/space). Though Jung remains
determinedly within the Western esoteric tradition there is certainly a
correspondence with Eastern traditions in his work. Particularly so in

1
R Cooper: The Evolving Mind: Buddhism, Biology, and Consciousness, Birmingam,
1996, 161-176.
2
See ‘Part 11, Body, Mind and Spirit: The Scientific Perspective,’ in G Watson, S
Bachelor and G Claxton: editors The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science
and our Day-to-Day Lives, Main, 2000, 71-197.
3
For example, G Claxton: editor Beyond Therapy: The Impact of Eastern Religions on
Psychological Theory and Practice, Dorset, 1996, and M Levine: The Positive
Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga, New Jersey, 2000.
4
Jung’s conceptualization of the Psyche is to be found in Jung: On the Nature of the
Psyche, translated by R F C Hull, London, 1969.
 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

the shared interest in the study of the processes and productions of

imagination and in the recognition of the consequent multi-
dimensional nature of ‘reality.’5 This paper will focus on the
contemporary psychological path.

For example Adams,6 building on a Jungian approach, calls for a new

school of psychotherapy to be called ‘imaginal psychology.’ The first
chapter of his book is subtitled ‘Imaginal psychology and the
dethroning of Mr Reality.’ Adams is speaking here of the one-eyed,
literalist and egocentric view of absolute and physical reality. The
imaginal approach radically affirms the centrality of the imagination as
core process of ‘knowing’ and the use of the fundamental ‘fantasy
principle’ as creative visualization. Adams is repeating a much earlier
call by Roberts Avens whose 1982 book is called Imaginal Body,7 but
the point is well taken. Clearly though the term ‘imaginal’ has a
qualitatively different though by no means unrelated emphasis in the
therapeutic intention as compared to the religious pursuit of salvific
practices. As a verb the term relates to the therapeutic development
of an emergent, insightful analysis of one’s own functioning as self-
knowledge. It is usually most concerned with psychosomatic issues
involving a clash between the dualistic motivating mechanisms of
body and mind.8 As a noun it refers to a creative dimension of reality
characterised by the emergence of unifying and potentially
transformative symbols. In bridging the ubiquitous poles-apart
common conflicts between subjective and objective experience these
symbols also transcends them to build a unique, emerging dimension
of imagination. The individual’s awareness of the imaginal can
transform a static and egotistical sense of being into one of positive
becoming - thus increasing a further potential for evolutionary
development.9 Working within one’s own ‘forgotten third’ function, as

5
Hanegraaff points to the sacralization of the psyche, the focus on the transmutation of
the imagination and its transformative powers as amongst the major features of the
Western esoteric in, W. J. Hanegraaff: New Age Religion and Western Culture:
esotericism in the mirror of secular thought Albany, 1998, 496-554.
6
M V Adams: The Fantasy Principle: psychoanalysis of the imagination, Brunner,
2004, 1 -19.
7
R Avens: Imaginal Body: para-Jungian reflections on soul, imagination and death,
London, 1982.
8
Denise Ramos speaks of symbol as the third factor in the psyche-body phenomenon
in D G Ramos: The Psyche of the Body: a Jungian approach to psychosomatics,
Brunner, 2004, 38.
9
Adams, op cit, 1.

133
 Buddha of Suburbia

Avens has it,10 increases the opportunity for self-knowledge as the

groundwork for overcoming the more reflexive and habitual processes
of coming into being. Increasing self-knowledge brings a sense of
learning to exercise a greater degree of developmental choice and
selective collaboration with the embodied motivations we experience
as our outer and inner worlds.

On the other hand it cannot be denied that initially the kinds of

experience most relevant to this evolution of psyche can be quite
terrifying when interpreted as an overwhelming threat to ego-
controlled consciousness. A wide variety of writers have likened this
fright-filled period of conflict to a sequence of initiation. Perhaps the
best known exposition is to be found in Joseph Campbell’s synthesis
of the otherworldly and mythological journey of the heroic ego.11 In
order to bring the archetypal forces of creation into the ambit of
human consciousness we personify them as gods and monsters, as
daimons and demons who are collectively otherworldly in exercising
their power over us. Due to the naturally defensive and protective
nature of the ego complex there is a tendency to ‘pathologize’ the
sensed interaction with these constructs of the psyche, somehow,
beyond our own self.12 Seen in a positive light however we are
experiencing a developmental pressure to expand our realization of
the potentials of consciousness. We can feel seriously threatened by
a sense of loss-of control over the integrity of our own existence when
the interaction with the denizens of other worlds takes on a totally
involuntary persistence.13 In Campbell’s schema these experiences of
conflict are called ‘threshold’ experiences which can continue as ‘the
road of trials.’14

In this paper I will be concentrating on the imagery from the reported

experience of abduction by extra-terrestrials and a subsequent,
involuntary participation in a breeding programme of hybrid
offspring.15 This scenario provides an apt illustration of the shocking

10
Avens, op cit, 7-10.
11
J Campbell: The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Princeton, 1972.
12
James Hillman has pursued the topic of personification as imagining in many works.
His best known book is J Hillman: Re-visioning Psychology, Harper/Collins, 1975.
13
See Chapter 10, in J Campbell: Myths to Live By, New York, 1975, 207; and
Campbell, Hero, op cit, 97.
14
Ibid.
15
There is a vast and extremely fanciful body of literature but J E Mack: Abduction:
Human Encounters with Aliens, New York, 1994, is a serious study of the subject.

134
 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

experience of vulnerability that occurs when our five-sense

consciousness appears to be invaded by an apparently superior force
that is interpreted as being essentially external to our being rather
than as a production of our own embodied imagery. The acronym
UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) has become a generic term during
so-called ‘New Age.’ It covers a wide range of anomalous experiential
phenomena. These experiences are essentially of something quite
other manifesting within the world of human consciousness. They
stretch from what have previously been called signs and portents in
the sky, to apparent eyewitness testimony of the landing of extra-
terrestrial space-craft on Earth, and to contact with humanoid beings
of various descriptions.16 These visitors sometimes bring dire threats
of apocalyptic intervention if urgent change in the sorry state of
human affairs with regard to the state of the planet and human nature
generally is not forthcoming. At other times, while stress on the urgent
need for evolutionary change of attitude and conduct remains, the
message is more positive in terms of the promise of salvation. Some
revelations interpret this promise as heralding the Second Coming,
the reincarnation of Jesus that will re-unite the human with the
divine.17

As we shall see the relationship between UFOs and new versions of

religion is only to be expected. Religious symbolism forms as an
attempt to overcome the classic problems regarding the ubiquitously
dualistic nature of human consciousness. The search for the meaning
and purpose of our existence must somehow heal the existential split
between subjective beliefs versus objective proof. When it comes to
the various UFO experiences however there is only point of
agreement to be found. It is that each and all of them present an
absolute affront to both our current state of ‘rational’ knowledge about
causation and the physical world and to our collective and consensual
definition of the absolutely ‘real’ as opposed to the merely ‘imaginary.’

This dilemma has been intensified by many reports involving the

apparently random abduction of ordinary citizens who are then
subjected to sexual violation usually as part of a laboratory style

16
Colin Wilson covers the whole range of contact experiences in, C Wilson: Alien
Dawn, An Investigation into the Contact Experience, London, 1999.
17
See J G Melton and G M Eberhart: ‘The Flying Saucer Contactee Movement 1950-
1994,’ in James R Lewis editor, The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other
Worlds, New York, 1995, 251-332.

135
 Buddha of Suburbia

breeding programme.18 The abductors state the intention of producing

a hybrid race of offspring and given the many millions of people who
have now claimed to be abductees, the experience of
intervention/invasion by the UFO other can be said to be on the
increase. The imagery involved in this hybrid breeding experience
provides interesting case material from the standpoint of imaginal
psychology. The argument presented in this paper is that the notion
of issue resulting from the ‘scientific’ but involuntary intercourse
between two worlds is symbolizing an archetypal drive for
evolutionary and revolutionary change in human consciousness. The
form it takes follows the form of our embodiment as living nature in its
imagery of a rebirthing of human nature as the vehicle of evolving
consciousness – as the hope for the future.

Some people, alternatively, report encounters with angels whose

function in human affairs shares much in common with the, this-
worldly attention shown by aliens.19 In discussing the ‘hermeneutics
of the imagination’ W. I. Thompson also employing the imagery of
angels (as representations of ‘celestial intelligences’) and has this to
say:

What is being brought forth in the relationship between, lets say a

celestial intelligence and our own human intelligence is a
constructed reality, a negotiable instrument for spiritual commerce.
The image or symbol is not an absolute description of reality, but a
20
medium of exchange, a form of currency.

It follows that the question, ‘But are these UFO phenomena actually
real or not?’ cannot be answered in this common-sense form. The
evidence in general reveals that the UFO experience is not only
mysterious but that it is also extremely irritating in the way that it
determinedly safeguards its own mystery. Something undeniable
happens, something quite unusual is experienced. Whatever it is it
can leave behind a clearly recognizable physical effect, sometimes
akin to radiation poisoning and so on. But the experience always

18
See R Durant: ‘Public Opinion Polls and UFOs,’ in H Evans and D Stacey editors A
World History of UFOs, Sydney, 1997, 235-244.
19
K Thompson: Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination, New York, 1991,
l40-l58.
20
W I Thompson: Coming into Being: Artefacts and Texts in the Evolution of
Consciousness, New York, 1996, 91.

136
 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

results in psychological consequences and particularly so in the case

of the abduction scenario.21

Something certainly happens but what? Jacques Vallee, who

dedicated a lifetime of research to discovering the ‘truth,’ has ended
up with only bitter conclusions. He writes that UFO phenomena,
‘enjoy a recursive unsolvability... it leaves indices behind, but they
seem to be even more maddeningly misleading than the witnesses
accounts... the phenomenon negates itself.’ He points to the
‘determined self-negating process involved,’ and the ‘constant factor
of absurdity.’22 Colin Wilson has written on the ‘deliberate
unbelievableness’ that seems built in to the interactive process of
contact and the fact that there is an unavoidable inconsistency
between the abductees reports and consensus reality.23 The
psychiatrist John Mack has concluded that, ‘There is no way I believe,
that we can make sense, let alone provide a convincing explanation
of this matter within the framework of our existing views of what is
real or possible.24 In one of the more classic works on this subject
John Mitchell comes to the realization that ‘...every apparently
sensible theory of flying saucer origins is mocked by the varied and
fantastic nature of the evidence ...’25 Many years of dedicated
investigation it seems have only led us back to the conclusion
(variously attributed) that states that, ‘Something unknown is doing
we know not what to us.’

The prolonged attempts at rational analysis of UFO phenomena has

tended to divert interest away from the predominant affect of the
reported experience on the collective psyche as well as upon the
individual consciousness. This one-sided emphasis on the individual
case has only managed to discover a self-mocking phenomenon. The
results of a surface material analysis result in what appears to be
some kind of cruel cosmic joke played upon Homo sapiens – as we
appear to be treated as just plain ‘homo saps.’ The contact

21
John Mack has published a longer term study of cases. J E Mack: Passport to the
Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters, London, 2000, 1.
22
I Vallee: UFOs, The Psychic Solution: UFO Influences on the Human Race, London,
1975, 68-69.
23
Wilson, op cit, 272.
24
Mack, Passport, op cit, 50.
25
J Mitchell: The Flying Saucer Vision, London, 1974, 17.
26
H Bloom: Omens of the Millennium; The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams and
Resurrection, London, 1996, 219-230.

137
 Buddha of Suburbia

experience often involves a journey that moves from ardent disbelief

to fervent belief, often followed by a disillusioned retreat into disbelief.
But is this dispirited retreat to the ego-contained safety of disbelief
actually a retreat from the contact experience with the archetypal
themes that we are aware of our own imaginations? Harold Bloom
(while also considering angels rather than UFOs) sees this kind of
disappointment as being alike to the ‘failure of biblical prophecy.’ This
failure should provoke us to the renewal of a search for ‘gnosis’
described here in terms of direct personal experience leading an
expansion of consciousness. The kind of direct experience that can
only be obtained through one’s own sense of being and the evolution
of self-knowing’.26

The literalist interpretation of the abduction case material27 typifies the

poles-apart dualism that has developed between UFO materialists
and those pursuing a more psychological or psycho-spiritual
explanation. Both these arguments if emphasized as denial of the
alternative view can be seen to be only half of the story. Whichever
position one chooses the nature of the experience and its
consequences also always contains elements of the other side (in
Jungian terms they are shadow to each other). Keith Thompson28
highlights the problem by evoking the concept of allegory (after Angus
Fletcher’s Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode). The point being
made is that some events illustrate ‘a peculiar doubleness of
intention.’ The literal surface of such an event can apparently ‘get
along without interpretation but it becomes much richer and more
interesting if given interpretation.’ This kind of ambiguity attracted Carl
Jung to the topic of UFOs.29 He found the phenomenon to illustrate
the seemingly inevitable clash we experience between the influence
of the outer and inner or say surface and depth dimensions of our
lives. Above all, our interpretations of the UFO phenomenon as other
reveal our attempts to exert determined over ‘reality.’

If we sidestep the superstitious and fantastic elements of the

abduction story we can see that core issue is rebirth. The focus is

27
Bud Hopkins’ books (for example B Hopkins: Intruders, New York, 1987) set a trend
that was followed by several writers, such as D Jacobs: Secret Life, New York, 1991.

28
Thompson, op cit, 36-37.
29
C G Jung: Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, translated by
R F C Hull: Princeton, 1978.

138
 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

clearly on the body and its reproductive mechanism. It turns out that
there is a curious interdependence involved between the abductors
and the abductees. This is sometimes expressed as a problem that
the aliens are facing with regard to their own lack of fertility but the
vital concerns (no pun intended) are mainly expressed as the need to
breed the kind of in-between or hybrid children that will be able to
span both worlds and advance evolution. We might recall that the
successful outcome of the heroic ego’s journey otherworldly
experience is a capacity to live in both worlds of this and the other (of
the material and the imaginal) and to unite their benefits in a healing
way.30 Though the abduction scenario is obviously about breeding it
lacks any sense of intercourse or intimacy as we usually interpret the
word. This is a sex-less as well as a sense-less interaction. Why
would technological superior aliens possibly need to experiment so
crudely with artificial insemination on unwilling humans who have
been ‘astral travelled’ usually away from their own snug bedrooms
during the dead of fearful night? Why would they risk reliance on what
can only be described as truly old fashioned methods related to
collection of sperm and ova? Even human science already knows
much about in-vitro fertilization and also cloning. Extra-terrestrials are
supposed to be technologically superior. They are also said to be
able to appear and disappear at will and to be able to move through
locked doors and solid walls. Other reports say that they
communicate by telepathy and can read our minds. Obviously then
they have the means to penetrate all the medical and scientific
laboratories in the world however secret we may think they are.

At face value the scenario indicates that something is not quite

happening in what should be a natural system of reproduction and
that this difficulty is of importance to the populations of both terrestrial
and extra-terrestrial dimensions of being. The hybrids when seen at
all are sometimes reported to be oddly shaped to the human eye
and/or as having failed to thrive, though the opposite and more
positive outcome has also been reported.31 The suggestion, in
keeping with the thesis of this paper is that the answer to this fertility
problem is being sought in the intermediate, interactive, potential
reality of the imaginal psyche. A rather one-sided struggle is occurring
within our imaginations in an attempt to bring forth a unifying symbol
– a special kind of child. This does not make these hybrid children of
30
Campbell, Hero, op cit, 229.
31
See Mack, Passport, op cit, for case studies.

139
 Buddha of Suburbia

emerging consciousness unreal because they are ‘living’ symbols

drawn from the innate experiences of embodiment. The little grey
aliens, usually the worker bees of the reported abductions, hardly
have any bodily form at all. Their dominant feature is large eyes and
they can be said to resemble embryonic rather than fully evolved
form. They literally poke about in the physical human body as if using
it as a trope. Considering the possibly eventual positive affects and
effects of the abduction experience rather than in constantly repeating
the negative, Wilson wonders whether these extra-terrestrials can be
seen as ‘evolutionary midwives.’32 A similar theme of lack of pro-
generative power is found in the condition of the Fisher King in the
saga of the search for the Holy Grail. The King who is constantly
‘fishing’ for an answer, is said to be wounded in his thigh. Due to his
condition the Kingdom has degenerated into a wasteland. Despite the
fact that the grail is presented regularly it is withdrawn again while
awaiting the appropriate deeper inquiry with regard to its meaning
and purpose.

Given that there is so much confusion about UFOs and indeed an

apparent trickery involved why should be bother studying the
abduction phenomena at all? There are of course practical
implications for mental health involved. Also the belief in the
experience of participation in the hybrid breeding project is an
example of the way that some New Age religions develop
‘revelation’.33 The reported experience gives us the opportunity for the
study of the imagistic dialogue occurring between our five-sense
awareness and the archetypal energies and motivations of evolving
creation. This dialogue illustrates material that would otherwise
remain unconscious to us while continuing to form our being and to
influence our behaviour. All perception depends upon our inheritance
of the process of imagination but here the argument is that the
dialogue between subjectivity and objectivity occurs as a forgotten
third function of imagination.34 W. I. Thompson agrees. He describes
imagination as ‘an intermediate realm between ego in its perceptual
body sense and the intervention of higher, multi-dimensional states of
consciousness’.35 Consideration of this intermediate dimension of the

32
Wilson, op cit, 272.
33
See readings in J R Lewis: editor The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other
Worlds, Albany, 1995.
34
Avens, op cit, 33-43.
35
W I Thompson, op cit, 87.

140
 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

imagination has also been described as the realm of the

psychosomatic subtle bodies when they are viewed as processes
rather than substances.36

Study of the UFO experience can provide data in relation to our

search for the meaning and purpose of the human
psyche/imagination. However the focus must switch to a study of the
way that we interpret and reinterpret the experience as the raw
material. When we do so the UFO phenomenon can begin to tell us
more about our own selves and the way we ‘know’ the creation and
our evolutionary/revolutionary embodiment. Our consciousness is
determinedly bi-modal and we have evolved to inhabit both subjective
and objective worlds. These worlds are interactive in terms of human
consciousness. The UFO experience can speak to any scientific,
philosophical, psychological and ultimately spiritual issues concerned
with the power of creative imagination. The answer to the old
question, ‘Are these phenomena material or of the psyche?’ could
turn out to not be a case of either/or, but one of neither/nor. The
creative imaginal and its imagistic dialogue can yield unifying and
transforming symbol as a third kind of potentially emergent
transcendent reality. Its domain is intermediate to and interactive with
the usually entirely unseen subjective/fantasy experience and our
knowledge of the seen and agreed upon objective/material world.
Strong support for this argument is found when we set the more
recent information about UFOs into a broader associative context.
The notion that the phenomenon is entirely to our more recent
technological era is incorrect. Books like The World History of
UFOs,37 actually begin from the late 1940s with the coining of the
term ‘flying saucers.’ But John Mitchell38, and R. L. Thompson39,
discuss the way that images and beliefs related to extra-terrestrial
influence have always been interwoven with the mythology of creation
involving the ‘Sky Gods’ and the ‘civilizing’ of the human race. R. L.
Thompson points to correspondences between recent reports and
accounts of other-worldly beings recorded in the ancient Vedic
literature and to reports of the inimical behaviour of UFO entities

36
Ramos, op cit, 38-42.
37
H Evans and D Tacey: editors, The World History of UFOs, Sydney, 1997.
38
Mitchell, op cit,19.
39
R L Thompson: Alien Identities: Ancient Insight into Modern UFO Phenomena,
Alachua, 1993, 328-334.

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 Buddha of Suburbia

towards humans.40 Though the UFO phenomena can also be

interpreted as contemporary mythmaking it certainly has a history that
stretches back at least to the beginning of recorded history.

Recognition of the power of myth brings us back to the theme of

human embodiment. The great Myths have cosmic, socio-cultural,
individual (as ego) and ultimately a spiritual resonance. They evolve
from image, to schema, to interpretation as story. The form of
Mythology is a reflection of the evolution of body (the experience of
embodiment). As Keleman has it:

Myths serve a practical function. They enable people to organize the

experience of their own bodies. Myths dramatize the experience of
our embodiment and which voice is speaking loudest at a particular
time. Our body structure determines a mythic way of thinking and
gives us an identity. Myths are about the body itself. Metaphor is
bodily based. It is experiential... The body’s growth, its deepening
range of feeling and action, is what myth promises.41

In what is probably the most extensive study of the body as myth,

Sansonese42 quotes Nietzsche to the effect that a physiological
investigation must precede any psychological theory. ‘Put briefly,
perhaps the entire evolution of the spirit is a question of the body; it is
the history of the development of a higher body that emerges into our
sensibility. The organic is rising to yet higher levels.’43 In terms of the
‘celestial’ dimension – the imaginal - Avens quotes Rutland’s Lexicon
Alchemicae, ‘Imagination is the star in man, the celestial and super-
celestial body.’ Avens interprets this to mean that ‘Imagination
creates not immaterial, vaporous phantoms but a subtle or imaginal
body.’44

As a therapeutic strategy imaginal psychology fits with the notion of

the maturation of our sense of individuality in a sequence that moves
from pre-egoic to egoic and mature egoic and potentially to trans-
egoic development of consciousness.45 The alternative to growth that

40
Ibid, 315.
41
S Keleman: Myth and Body: A Colloquy with Joseph Campbell, Berkeley, 1999, ii.
42
N Sansonese: The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance and the Sacred
Geography of the Body, Rochester, 1994.
43
Ibid, 357-358.
44
Avens, op cit, 43. Also see Ramos, op cit, 38-42.
45
K Wilbur: The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development,
Wheaton, 1996, 147-164.

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 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

can follow the transit of the life cycle is stagnation and regression.
This occurs when commitment to a one-dimensional interpretation of
the UFO phenomena as being exclusively material or exclusively
occurring within the psyche continues at the expense of its polar
opposite? In such cases it seems that an egotistical and highly
defensive limitation is placed on consciousness. For example Bud
Hopkins and his followers are sworn to the literalist view that aliens
not only exist but that they are and have been persisting with a
clandestine breeding programme for many years. Hopkins and his ilk
can indeed to have popularized if not help create the abduction
scenario (always remembering that some anomalous experience has
occurred). He would describe his work as uncovering the plot which
he does through the use of hypnotic regression. His subjects are
‘victims’ who have an uneasy sense of something unfortunate and
troublingly causal having happening to them that they have hitherto
been unable to discover for themselves. Bud Hopkins then uncovers
for them via hypnotic regression that they are abductees. Their
memories of these incidents have been blocked by the alien
perpetrators – that is up to the time that they were helped to
remember by Hopkins.

His much published interpretation and re-affirmation of his beliefs

have done much to popularize his explanation despite expert opinion
regarding the pitfalls of ‘suggestion’ that are often very evident in the
use of hypnosis. In fact the method raises more questions than it
answers in terms of problems related to false memory syndrome and
emotional contagion. His studies are useful however in that they give
voice to deep seated human fears and perceived vulnerabilities.
Something felt in an intensely personal way has a collective and
empathic resonance relating to our state of being because what has
been largely unconscious content is brought into daylight
consciousness.

Vallee meanwhile attempted to argue for the psychic solution. He

worried about the powerful resonance of UFO imagery and the
‘absorption at a deep unconscious level of the symbols conveyed by
the encounter.’ He also speaks of a ‘mechanism of ‘resonance’
between the UFO symbol and the archetypes of the human
unconscious. He turns to the crucial role of the emergence of the
symbol described by Jung though he misrepresents this process as
an entirely metaphysical phenomenon. The later Jung was at great

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 Buddha of Suburbia

pains to emphasise that the emergence of the symbol possessed

resonance precisely because it is also a bodily phenomenon though
interwoven with the other dimensions of the psyche. Vallee correctly
deduces that ‘the stage is set for the appearance of new faiths
centred on the UFO belief’ and he includes an interesting table in
which UFO events/effects are compared with the descriptions
gleaned from reports of religious miracles.46

But his vision turns darker. He comes to interpret UFOs as a means

of conditioning Homo sapiens via a ‘control system’ that is forcing us
through a learning curve and that this effort necessitates the use of a
calculated fallacy, that requires us to re-arrange our concept of
reality. In Messengers of Deception his view of the control system
becomes ‘subliminal seduction.’

Let me summarise my conclusions. UFOs are real. They are an

application of psychotronic technology; that is, that they are physical
devices used to affect human consciousness. They may not be from
outer space; they may, in fact, be terrestrial-based manipulating.
Their purpose may be to achieve social changes on this planet.
Their methods are those of deception: systematic manipulation of
witnesses and contactees; covert use of various sects and cults;
control of the channels through which alleged ‘space messages’ can
47
make an impact on the public.

From the psychological point of view an association exists between

the UFO experience and other areas of anomalous human
experience. These are often grouped together under the title of
altered states of consciousness48 ‘fed trance phenomena.49 Question
concerning the definition of what is ‘real’ will remain to stimulate
personal search. The last word on the subject in this paper should go
to John E. Mack. He speaks of the awakening and a heightened state
of consciousness that can grow out of the originally ego shattering
impact of the abduction experience – as reflexive fear and a sense of
repugnance is worked through. He lists four benefits, a summarised
version of which are:

46
Vallee, op cit, 180-183.
47
I Vallee: Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults, Berkley, 1979, 21.
48
C T Tart: Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential, Dorset, 1988.
49
D R Weir: Trance, From Magic to Technology, Ann Arbor, 1996.

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 The Symbol of the Hybrid Human/Alien Child

1. They find that they have access to what Westerners call non-
ordinary states of consciousness... They become truly aware if
the great archetypes of the collective unconscious, of birth,
death and rebirth, which helps them to experience their
connectedness to other beings and the Creator or Source.
2. There is a deepening of their psychological and spiritual sense
of the power of being.
3. They experience a heart-opening, a sense of loving connection
with all living things and the creation itself.
4. Abductees experience a renewed sense of the sacred and
reverence for nature as the natural flow of things.50

But above all some abductees at least are said to form a deep and
abiding constructive relationship with their other, which we might
prefer to describe as their own deeper selves.

50
Mack, op cit, Prophets, 277-279.

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