Does Sleep Paralysis Explain Alien Abduction?

Sleep paralysis has become widely known as a common sleep disorder in which the body becomes paralyzed (as it commonly does during dream sleep to protect people from injury) but the person falling asleep is not totally asleep yet.

Instead, during sleep paralysis, the experiencer is trapped in a state of twilight sleep, somewhere in between full consciousness and dreaming.

While in this between-state, the person typically experiences terror, the sense of a malevolent presence in the room, and a heaviness or pressure on the chest or body, as if being held down or paralyzed by that entity.

In some cases the person is only dimly aware of a sinister presence and sees nothing except, possibly, a shadow. In other cases the person sees what look like alien creatures, demons, or paranormal entities. The experience ends when the person wakes up or falls asleep completely.

Sleep paralysis is often put forward as an explanation for alien abduction reports. Before aliens became the bete du jour, people reported being 'hagged' (ridden by an old hag, which was understood to be form of witchcraft), or said they had been attacked by an incubus or succubus--demons that preyed on a semiconscious person's sexual energy.

It's tempting to say, "oh well, now we understand that this is a medical problem called sleep paralysis," but in fact, as long ago as 1989, respected academic folklorist David Hufford was making a reasoned argument that 'sleep paralysis' is a descriptive term for what appears to be a consistent discrete phenomenon that we don't really completely understand.

Hufford's book, The Terror that Comes in the Night, based on his academic study entitled "An Experience Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions." revolutionized the academic study of folklore. Previous to Hufford's careful philosophical analysis, it was assumed that folkloric tales were primitive (read: false) ways of understanding things that science could easily explain better.

In fact, science does not have a great explanation for some things that trigger folkloric explanations, and neither does the study of folklore.

Sleep paralysis or 'hagging' (in the language of folklore) is one these cases.

The casual and superficial debunking of paranormal and UFO or alien phenomena often includes scientific 'explanations' that are actually descriptions that are no more accurate than the folklore explanations that preceded them, of phenomena that we just don't understand very well.

A description is NOT an explanation, and it is even less an argument against the validity of an experience.

Sleep paralysis is a fascinating phenomenon. I myself have experienced it several times when I was much younger. It really is a terrifying and weird experience, but the leap from that experience to the experience of an alien abduction is huge, despite the intriguing similarities.

Before we start snickering at these things, it would be so great if we could look into them with an open mind. And I need to mention here that many respected scientific and academic minds have ask for the same attitude.

We might just discover something nobody expects.

And isn't that what science is supposed to be about?

The Significance of Time in UFO Sightings and Alien Abduction Experiences

Time distortions play an important role in many UFO sightings and in nearly all alien abduction experiences. For example:

• Abductees report episodes of 'missing' time and time distortion most of the time. Sometimes they find themselves unable to account for several hours on a routine trip. Sometimes abductees report feeling like days have passed during the experience when the actual amount of time that passed was hours or minutes.
• UFO sightings are also sometimes accompanied by time distortions. One especially fascinating distortion (which is by no means universal) involves the stoppage of time. Watches, car ignitions, and digital displays shut down in the presence of a UFO, but often time itself also seems to have stopped. When the vehicle clock is checked again, the sighting seems to have occurred outside of time, as if time itself had stopped, not just the watch.
• When UFOs at a distance are sighted by pilots and others, the motion of the UFO is often described as jerky or "like a stone skipping on water." In other words, the UFO does not always move in a straight fluid line. Instead it seems to appear one place, then another, then another, with gaps in between, in much the same way that film appears when the reel is slowed way down. Kevin Arnold, who is often credited with the having seen the first UFO (I think this is not correct but it is a standard description) explained the movement of the objects he saw as jerky in this way. Some observers describe it as the UFO 'blinking in and out.'
• When veteran ufologist John Keel first reported the Men In Black phenomena, he noted that the way these 'men' dressed and spoke, as well as the cars they tended to drive, were 'off' in terms of time. That is, the clothing was from the 40s or 50s, the cars were from that era also, and the slang used was dated to the point of being sometimes comical.
• One of the most frequently used non-explanations of UFO sightings and alien abductions is temporal lobe epilepsy. The temporal lobe is the part of the brain that processes incoming verbal information and memory, and also, our sense of time.

It seems to me that this might be a clue to what is going on with at least some the more unusual sightings, the ones that can't be explained in other ways. I'm not sure the answer is as simple as 'time travel'. But I do think that in many of stranger examples, distortions of time are important.

Theoretical physics has already discovered that time is more than a sequence of cause events arranged like a line through space.

Human beings perceive time this way, but that isn't how physicists necessarily understand it. We have to be careful about taking complex ideas and reducing them to New Age blather, but then again, it seems that something genuine is going on here. We just don't know what it is.

Yet.

I'd like to go on, but I'm not a physicist and I don't have... um, time.

But it's something to consider, no? 

Ancient Aliens or Modern Misconceptions?

I'm going to share (not much of) a secret with you:

I will watch almost anything with a paranormal/UFO theme to it, even paranormal reality shows, even the Ancient Aliens series on the History Channel.

I also have fond memories of the release of the first Von Daniken book, Chariots of the Gods!

You have to like a guy who isn't ashamed to use exclamation marks at the end of every sentence, no matter how silly or far-fetched.

Wait. What I meant to say is,

You have to admire a guy who isn't afraid! To use exclamation marks! At the end of every sentence! No matter how silly or far-fetched!


I also really, really like the Greek fellow with the crazy hair who edits his own magazine about this stuff. He is always very well-dressed and well-spoken, and he has hair that defies the laws of physics. Seriously, that hair is proof enough for me of almost anything he has to say.

I know I'm being a bit of smart aleck here and I usually try not to do that. But it seems to me that there are a number of basic misconceptions underlying the ancient alien hypothesis. Un-coincidentally, mainstream archeology shares a few of these too. That way, we get the classic crackpot/debunker deadlock polarity that for some reason HAS to emerge in any discussion of the unexplained.


Here are just a few of those (for my money) faulty assumptions:

1. The Myth of Progress.  This myth has it that human beings are naturally progressing toward greater and great sophistication and intelligence, so that anything in the deep past that we can't replicate and improve upon today must be evidence of some kind of intervention by a superior force. We can't build Stonehenge without machines so aliens must have done it. We can't build a system of aqua ducts to Roman specifications so aliens must have done it. We don't know how the Pharoahs slapped up those pyramids so quickly and so mathematically/astronomically correctly so aliens must have done it. This assumption is deeply disrespectful of ancient peoples, many of whom were as sophisticated and intelligent if not more so than today's top scientists. It is egomaniacal in the extreme to assume that we are the pinnacle of human development and therefore anything we don't understand must have inhuman origins. 
2. The Aliens Are a Lot Like Us Assumption.  Not only are aliens assumed to be bipedal, hominid-type organisms of more or less the same height and girth as homo sapiens, they are assumed to be 'technologically advanced', meaning they have an affinity for shiny aerodynamic shapes, bright lights, and tight-fitting jumpsuits. But even a cursory look at alien species invasions on our own planet--and there have been many--reveals that aliens can be as small and goopy as a zebra muscle or as florally lovely and rabid as a strand of purple loosestrife. In fact, the first aliens we meet from outer space might have already arrived--in the form of microscopic viruses. So the 'a lot like us' assumption seems more a byproduct of science fiction stories and movies than common sense. If the aliens are aliens, you would, if anything, expect them to be so different from us that we would barely recognize them as living things. 
3. The 'They Want Our Wimmin' Assumption.  So, let's just get this straight. Alien invaders came from across time and space to visit Earth eons ago, and the first thing they did when they got here was try to get laid? Seriously? When was the last time a zebra mussel put the moves on your wife? Even if that did happen, how far do you think such a mussel would get with its dishonorable intentions? Why don't humans try mating with chimpanzees so we can get them to run our Walmarts? Because it's disgusting, that's why! I mean, come on! We have some good-looking wimmin here on earth, but they're not all that and a bag of chips.

You get my drift.

I could go on, but I won't.

I actually think the notion that alien species found their way to earth in our deep past is a real possibility and a credible one.

It's just that the analysis going on on both sides of the fence, at least for now, isn't.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching the show.

I still haven't figured out how that guy gets his hair to stay like that.

Happy Anniversary Kevin Arnold

Sixty-four years ago, on June 24, 1947, Air Force pilot Kevin Arnold reported that he had seen several silver flying discs from his plane that moved like stones skipping over water.

Arnold's description of the objects as 'disc shaped' led to invention of the term 'flying saucer', and the modern era of ufology was born. Arnold later modified his report to say that some of the discs were shaped more like flying arcs (see photo).

Kenneth Arnold had over 9,000 hour in flight and was widely respected both within and outside of the military. He claimed that he was not worried about the sighting at first because he assumed the discs were classified U.S. military aircraft.

When that assumption turned out not to be the case (so far as we know), Arnold became more involved in the investigation of UFOs, interviewing several witnesses and contactees and eventually writing a book on the topic.

Some UFO researchers and conspiracy theorists (i.e., Bruce Macabbee, Jim Marrs) claim Arnold had seen UFOs over Yakima Washington and even had some contact with military intelligence agents (either knowingly or unknowingly) in early 1947, before his famous sighting.

Whether or not that is true, after a few years Arnold refused to talk about UFOs any further and began to decline all interviews.

Make of it all what you will.

If nothing else, these claims prove that dissembling and controvery are par for the course when it comes to UFOs, and have been from day one.

And that is a fact you can take to the bank.

UFOs have been seen in the skies and reported in detail for millennia of course (see the recent book, Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times, by Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck), but Kevin Arnold's sighting is widely regarded as the beginning of the 20th century incarnation of these elusive phenomena.

Whether you believe, just want to believe, or think it's all total rot, why not celebrate?

Have some star jelly on your toast today.

Make cupcakes!

Super 8 and Alien Anger Management Issues

The new J.J. Abrams movie "Super 8" could have been called "Cloverfield Goes to Steeltown and by the Way I Really Like Stephen Spielberg," but that doesn't roll off the tongue as easily, and it doesn't fit on the screen any easier than its rampaging (but mostly absent) extraterrestrial star.

Basically a monster movie set up as an homage to Spielberg's "ET: The Extraterrestrial," "Super 8" is less sugary and hopeful than Spielberg's alien offerings, but tamer and less noisy than Michael Bay's roller coaster ride of back to back explosions (i.e. "Transformers").

Oh, there's lots of explosions and noise in "Super 8," but the young actors are great and the story is good too.

I liked it.

But then, I like ALL monster movies, with alien movies being a close second, so you can't totally trust my judgment.

Watching "Super 8," it did hit me how much aliens have changed since Spielberg first gave us that cute little bug-eyed thing with a glowing finger and a heart light. By the time "Close Encounters" came out, aliens were still friendly, though more mysterious.

But then we got the "Alien" series with Sigourney Weaver and that black bitch creature dripping acid (really they were mirror image bitch creatures, very cool, Ridley), and then came the Predator series, and then "Independence Day", so that today, 30 years post-Super-8 setting (Super 8 takes place in the 80s, when Abrams came of age), you can pretty much count on aliens being pissed off, even if it is only because they are so misunderstood.

So basically, we've seen aliens morph into really scary incarnations of the Goddess: Kali, maybe. And that's interesting because 4,000 years ago the Goddess is exactly who these big-eyed critters served. (See image, left.)

Monsters are almost always about the Goddess or an incarnation thereof, and the connections in "Super 8" are obvious enough to knock you out.

(I won't spoil the movie by describing any of them here.)

"Super 8" isn't a great movie, and it isn't Spielberg, but it isn't "Lost" either. It's a fantastic 'B' movie though. I hope more are in the works.

If the 'B' monster movie comes back, I will be one happy camper.

In the meantime, go see "Super 8" if it's really hot out and you need a break.

Take the kids. Buy popcorn.

Just don't expect an epiphany. (It's a MOVIE for chrissakes!)

Area 51: A New Book by Annie Jacobsen

The sad thing about the publication of Los Angeles Times Magazine reporter Annie Jacobsen's carefully researched book about Area 51 and the history of covert aerial U.S. intelligence operations, is that all readers will take away from her treatise is the very last bit about where the three little bodies recovered at Roswell really came from.

And no wonder!

As alien/ufo stories go, it's a doozy.

That's what bothers me most about it, actually.

It's impossible to tell whether any part of the surprise ending of Area 51 is true, and though Jacobsen's explanation makes compelling fodder for conspiracy theorists (as if they needed any more compelling fodder), the claim itself is problematic.

Why?

Well, for lots of reasons. Here are just a few:

• U.S. military intelligence has a long, well-documented history of screwing with people who are writing UFO books. They approach then with juicy tidbits, then feed them disinformation. Right now, there are so many bits of fantabulous false info out there--all of them planted by 'reliable inside sources' and all of them contradicting one another in some way, that it's hard to know which way is up. Every author believes his or her particular source is unimpeachable, and swears that that person would never, ever lie. OK. Whatever.
• I'm pretty sure that a series of X-Files episodes featuring Jacobsen's revelation were televised fifteen years ago or so. If you are an X-Files geek like me you probably remember them: They were the ones in which Mulder finds a bunch of railroad cars filled with alien bodies buried in the Arizona desert and the Cigarette Smoking Man shows up and torches them. 
• The revelation itself is internally inconsistent in some ways, which is to say, some details make no sense and the answers to questions about them are unconvincing. 

In short, Jacobsen claims that the bodies recovered at Roswell were genetically and/or surgically altered human children, made to look like aliens by using the insane 'research' of Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele. Jacobsen's source claims that when the Soviets saw the internal chaos created by the Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds, they hatched a covert operation to create chaos within the U.S. by faking an alien landing. Roswell was the first attempt.

The dates are off though. Roswell happened in the summer of 1947. The Nazis abandoned Auschwitz in 1945. How could children have been genetically altered for such an experiment in two years? When NPR hostess Terry Gross put this question to Jacobsen, she had no answer.

But a bigger problem with the story is why keep it secret then? If the U.S. meant to discourage UFO stories after Project Blue Book ended (as many assert), why not just disclose what really happened? People would be appalled, but once proof was produced they would accept it and write it off to the horrors of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. The end. Mystery solved.

Jacobsen's source had a strange answer for this, one I personally find less compelling than the timing issue. (Mengele did do a lot of horrifying surgical 'research' on dwarves, so it is not inconceivable that the Soviets could have replicated this in two years, although it is quite distasteful to think on it.) He said that the U.S. has not disclosed this information because we have continued the genetic research. 

Why? To what purpose?

It makes a good conspiracy story or X-Files episode, but beyond that, it's hard to understand what the U.S. government might gain by genetically changing children into creatures that look like aliens.

Still, it's good to see serious books being written about UFOlogy as various files become declassified. If they catch on, perhaps we will get serious books that ask harder questions and avoid sensatonal cliffhanger endings.

How Would You Talk to a Snail?

OK, my last entry was dense and unreadable.

In my own defense, I did post a warning beforehand that it would be. And this is my obligatory apology afterward.

Look, sometimes I just have stuff I need to get off my chest, and I know it's weird unreadable stuff that only about six people on planet earth give a shit about (hence the title of this blog), and you know, I can't help it.

I just can't.

(Hence the blog itself. A container for my personal madness.)

Anyway, that all reminds me of a joke an employer of mine used to tell about a snail:

A guy is sitting in his living room watching television when suddenly there's a loud knock at his front door. He goes to the door and opens it, looks around, sees no one, shuts the door and goes back to his TV program. No sooner has he sat down than that loud knock comes again. Again he gets up, opens the door, sees no one, and stomps back to his seat, irritated. Almost immediately the knocking starts again, so he gets up, stomps over to the door, yanks it open, and this time looks down at the porch and sees a snail sitting there, facing the door. Infuriated at the constant interruption, the guy starts cussing wildly, picks up the snail, and hurls it as hard as he can and as far as he can out into the street.

Five years later he's sitting on his couch watching TV when again, BAM! BAM! BAM! He hears that same knock on the front door. He gets up opens the door, and there sits that very same snail. The snail looks straight at him and asks in all innocence,

"What the hell was that all about?"

The scene is kind of poignant, really. I mean, here's this snail who's perfectly cool with a five year crawl back up to the door. And here's this guy who is in meltdown mode after losing a mere minute or two of a leisurely afternoon.

Time is relative.

I think about that a lot in regard to aliens and how they might communicate with human beings should they desire to do so.

The truth is, we'd have a hell of a time even having a decent conversation with a snail never mind a creature from another world. For one thing, we're on different time schedules. Then there's the language barrier and the size barrier.

And yet, even though we can't even converse with a lowly snail, we figure mega-advanced but totally alien life forms will approach us, speak in language that makes sense to us, and do it on our schedule and in terms of our interests.

So many alien abduction and alien encounter stories involve distortions in time that make no immediate sense. I've often wondered if this is because we are receiving communications from a species with a completely different conception of time, one we don't fully grasp.

The message, the content of the communication, is also at issue. If you were a snail trying to convey some snail concerns about humans to a human, your first move attempt might not get total uptake. Probably the human would wander away before you were one tenth of the way through it (that or throw you as hard as possible into the street).

Now think of these poor aliens. We'd like to think they'd show up understanding English and armed with some mathematical formulas to bridge the creature gap, but possibly their agenda and their schedule is quite different than ours.

That's what makes the notion of using visual symbolic communication so appealing as a possibility. Symbols are dense and capable of carrying an enormous amount of information in seemingly simple form. Work them into narratives and dramas and they're even more powerful and complex. Symbolism and visual information also cuts through the language and the education barrier.

We like to imagine that intelligent aliens would seek out brilliant scientists or powerful politicians as their first point of contact, but why would they? Again, if that's our bias.

I have another alien/snail story that really sticks with me even though most people think it's stupid.

Suppose a snail was sliming slowly along a damp sidewalk. A human comes by, picks up the snail, moves it six feet forward in a matter of a second or two.

The snail would have absolutely no clue what just happened. Also, it would seem to the snail as if no time had passed, as if it was just suddenly somewhere else.

That kind of thing actually happens to abductees and experiencers.

They're not snails, I know.

Are they?