Abductions and Aliens: What's Really Going On?
Description
Contains Photos
$22.99
ISBN 0-88882-210-3
DDC 001.9'42
Author
Publisher
Year
Contributor
Daniel M. Kolos is president of Benben Books, a company publishing
scholarly works.
Review
Starting with the premise that stories about abductions and aliens are
just that, stories, Rutkowski builds a case that some of the stories are
part of the human defence mechanism, while others build “a legacy of
awe and wonder about our place in the universe.” Instead of burying
himself in a string of case histories, he devotes a chapter (albeit a
very long one) to these and then goes on to analyze the existing
literature for both the writers and their methods. The Harvard
psychiatrist John Mack, for example, survived a professional review of
his peers triggered by his interest in UFOs. People who are most likely
to see a UFO tend to be, “status inconsistent” (i.e., with high
education and low income). Inconsistency also creeps in with regard to
differences in implants and in the details of the alien abductors’
clothes, characteristics, and devices. Ultimately, social scientists
find ufology its own antithesis: the quest for “truth” “is
impossible because ... ufology itself is a reaction to mainstream
society” and its reality.
Rutkowski presents himself somewhat as a social scientist by default.
He points out that UFO investigators are biased to begin with and tend
not to associate with other investigators. When people come to him for
help (the subject of Chapter 3), he seeks a hypnotist or psychologist
for his client, on the assumption that a the person who has gone through
a sighting or abduction experience, whether imagined or real, has gone
through trauma. However, the professionals have not been trained to deal
with abductees.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 list potential terrestrial, psychological, and
religious reasons for UFO experience. So strong are some of the
arguments against the “reality” of UFO sightings that Rutkowski
leaves the reader hanging. The author tries to remain sympathetic to the
individual reality of abductees, but in the end he cites other
authorities for their unsympathetic assessments and the reader does not
have a clear sense of where he stands.