The E.T. Hypothesis
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- The following is a transcript of the 12/29/87 rebroadcast of an episode from the long running television series called "Man Alive". The episode is entitled"The E.T. Hypothesis", and originally aired in April 1987. That particular programreceived the highest audience rating of any episode in the 20-year history ofMan Alive. The series is hosted by Roy Bonisteel, and this particular show has to do with issues relating to the abduction experience in connection with UFO's. The program's format involves location filming, which in this case includesa short interview and hypnosis session with a middle aged woman abductee, along with a roundtable discussion about the abduction phenomenom and its manyimplications. The participants include notably Budd Hopkins, recognized UFOauthority along with other interested parties such as a Futurist and a doctor specializing in hypnosis for the treatment of trauma. As Roy Bonisteel is the host of the program, he acts both as a narrator, and as a direct participant. Therefore, when he is acting in either capacity I shall indicate it by placing an (N) or (P) behind his name in order to clarify things.Other clarifying points not expressed in the dialogue, will be indicated by myselfthrough the use of these type brackets < >. The half-hour program Man Alive is broadcast coast-to-coast in Canada on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), which also produces it. -The program was videotaped and transcribed by ParaNet member Tom Mickus.+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "THE E.T. HYPOTHESIS"Roy Bonisteel (N): Looking up at a star filled sky, how often do we wonder about other life in the universe? From what we know today it seems virtually certain that we're not alone. It follows that contact with an extraterrestrial civilization could happen, and at any moment. Most of us would agree that this would be a significant milestone in human history. But do we have any idea at all about how it will affect us? Popular culture often reflects a naive, comfortable vision of extraterrestrials. They either look and sound like us, or are pets . Sometimes the image is threatening, a nightmare of unearthly evil , but the good guys always win in the end. In more self reflective moments we see extraterrestrials as saviours, crucified by our fears . But what would the reality be like? What could happen to our culture, our religions, our view of the world, our very sense of ourselves as a Race? People have always looked to the skies and seen strange things, but it wasn't until 1947 that an idea captured the public imagination. That some of these strange objects may in fact be somebody else's spacecraft. It's an idea that provoked a highly polarized debate. But believers were often questionable types, they claimed to bring us messages of love from our space brothers. But the disbelievers were equally zealous in their pronouncements, and often just as hard to believe. Though the evidence has accumulated, thousands of un- explained sitings, pictures that have held up under analysis, it still is circumstantial. The subject still provokes passionate opinions, people who report UFO's are ridiculed in the Press. Scientists make unscientific pronouncements. The beliefs about them, both pro and con, are sometimes expressed with a fervour that can only be described as fanatical. It seems that a lot more is at stake in the UFO controversy than just the evidence.David Jacobs: The UFO phenomenom is strange in the extreme, and even to go ahead and discuss some of the things that I will in fact discuss, suggests....calls into question the quality of my judgements.Bonisteel (N): David Jacobs is a professor of history at Temple University in Philadelphia.Jacobs: ...academics, and other scientists must be EXTREMELY careful because there is a tremendous amount of ridicule attached to this subject. Starting in the 1970's, we began to receive large numbers of abduction reports. The abduction reports are I think extremely important. They are basically reports that people claim would have us believe that they were... grabbed so to speak by occupants, they were given a physical examination of some sort, and then released. Now normally these kind of cases in "the old days" were simply dismissed, put in the CP file, CrackPot. These people would be labelled loonies, and there are loonies out there, there are people who lie out there, everybody is aware of that, and this is probably just another manifestation of that. However, there are so many of them now, and they are so consistent, and the witnesses are so credible that UFO researchers are forced to confront them. They are forced to deal with them. Once we have begun to study abduction reports, it is almost as if a door opened. Budd Hopkins: I have worked with 124 people to date who I feel have either had... definitely seem to have had this kind of abduction experience, the experience which most interests me. Of those people, 66 have remembered a full account.Bonisteel(N): Budd Hopkins is a New York artist who has been researching UFO's since a daylight sighting he had had in the '60's. He's well known in New York art circles, his work is collected by both the Whitney and Guggenheim museums. But Hopkins is also the leading researcher into the UFO abduction phenomenom.Hopkins: The people who have experienced these abductions include three people who hold Phd degrees, I have housewives, farmers, two police officers, I have two army officers, I have just about everyone you could imagine who has been involved in abductions.Bonisteel(N): We felt that regardless of whether or not the abduction phenomenom is real, it could give us a fascinating window through which we could explore the idea of extraterrestrial contact. Four people from varied backgrounds came to my farm for two days to hear Budd Hopkins talk about his research. Professor Allan Tuff, a futurist at the Ontario Institute for Studies In Education (O.I.S.I.E), University of Toronto. Clarence Dickinson, astronomer and author. John Musgrave, educational consultant from Edmonton, with an interest in folklore and UFO's. And Dr. Michael Kaufman, a general practicioner who uses hypnosis in his practice for treatment of trauma.Hopkins: I'm looking at all these cases and obviously you have three alternatives essentially. The person is making it all up, is lying to you, its a hoax. The second, and obviously much more rewarding area to look for is that there is some sort of psychological explanation of some sort, of any sort. The third alternative, is of course the only third alternative, is that they are describing what really happened to them, as best as they remember it.Bonisteel(N): Its Hopkins contention that they are describing what really happened to them. He began to show us some thought provoking slides.Hopkins: This mark on the ground is a photograph taken in Indianapolis, in a case that is very central to a whole cluster of events that I'm working on now. In the morning after this event happened, this is what turned up on the ground . The soil is absolutely cooked, its almost like rock. It will not hold water, water runs straight through it, and this is the entire area. Now this is the leg of that woman foreground , we'll call her name Cathy. Those little scars, those little scoop- marks are associated with two events that happened to her. One, when she was about six, and one when she was about thirteen. And under hypnosis she has remembered a UFO experience where a small tool took a little core sample. This is her mother's leg . Her mother had a missing time experience which was very distressing for her when she was a little girl, and at the end of it she had this little mark. This is another woman who was a close friend, who had an abduction experience, a missing time experience, and she remembered a great deal of it consciously. This is of course a very common type of figure as we now know from so many of these reports. This predates Close Encounters incidentally .Bonisteel(N): After lunch, Budd Hopkins began to present his latest findings publicly for the very first time. Up to this point, only a handful of people have been aware of the things that we now heard. Hopkins was understandably nervous.Hopkins: A new aspect of the whole phenomenon which I have stumbled into has to do with this idea of some genetic experimentation. And we have always known that there have been, suggestions at least, of ova being taken form women and sperm from
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