The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

Hostility to conspiracy theory is as useless in understanding the world as an indiscriminate acceptance of it. The task, surely, is to disentangle the mad and bad conspiracies from those that illuminate the darkened, secret corners of power. To this end The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups takes a considered, objective scalpel to one hundred of the most compelling conspiracy theories of modern times. The theories are arranged alphabetically, assessed and interrogated. Where appropriate, the relevant documents are reproduced, and details of where to look to find out more are listed. Each conspiracy theory is assigned an «Alert Level» rating indicating its likely veracity.

But this is only an indication: the reader must make up his or her own mind.

It’s only «them» who tell you what you must believe.

Jon E. Lewis

2008

Alien abduction

They’re not out there. They’re here …

Early morning, 19 September 1961. Betty and Barney Hill are driving home from vacation in Niagara Falls. On Route 3 south of Lancaster, New Hampshire, the Hills notice a bright light in the sky which seems to be following them. Perplexed, Barney halts the car and gets out and recognizes the white light as a UFO; inside the alien craft Barney Hill can clearly see beings looking out at him. When Barney approaches within 75 feet (23m) of the flying saucer a door in the craft opens and Barney, fearing he is going to be captured, runs back to the car and drives off. A little while later the Hills hear a strange bleeping sound and the car is enveloped in white haze. Suddenly the Hills realize they are miles from where they should be. Later, after the Hills reach home, they discover the journey has taken two hours more than it ought.

The next day Betty Hill contacted the local Air Force base; their experience was in due course recorded in Project Blue Book, albeit only in the «insufficient data» section. But more data was forthcoming when the Hills, suffering nightmares and insomnia, sought out a psychiatrist. Dr Benjamin Simon gave Betty and Barney separate courses of hypnotic therapy, during which they both recalled being kidnapped by small grey humanoids and taken aboard the UFO. The mystery of the missing two hours was now explained: the Hills had been abducted by aliens, who communicated with them by telepathy. A sort of pregnancy test was conducted by the aliens on Betty Hill, who was also shown an astral chart; the aliens pointed to a star which Betty deduced was the home sun of the space travellers. After their examination, the Hills were replaced in their car and sent on their way.

There had been one previous reported case of alien kidnap (in 1957 by the Brazilian Antonio Villas-Boas, who claimed that his female alien captor had sex with him), but it was the Hills’ case which truly began the alien abduction phenomenon. Written up with the help of author John G. Fuller, the Hills’ account of their close encounter, The Interrupted Journey, was a bestseller. The episode contained all the core elements of later abductions: missing time; it happens at night; paralysis; examination by the aliens, with resultant inexplicable marks left on victim’s skin; telepathic communication with the aliens; post-abduction sleep disorders …

After the release of The Interrupted Journey in 1966, a parade of alien abductions followed, including:

In November 1975 six woodcutters claimed that their colleague, Travis Walton, had vanished after encountering a UFO. When Walton reappeared he claimed that he, like the Hills, had been abducted by the aliens known throughout the UFO fraternity as «Greys».

In 1987 the horror novelist Whitley Strieber claimed in his book Communion (later filmed starring Christopher Walken) to have been abducted and anally probed by aliens.

In 1991 Linda Cortile alleged that she was beamed out of her New York apartment into a UFO; the «case of the century» was researched by UFOlogist Budd Hopkins, who maintains he found two secret servicemen attached to the United Nations who witnessed Cortile’s aerial passage into the UFO.

In the same year as Cortile’s alleged abduction, the Roper polling organization found that 2 per cent of the US’s 300 million population had been abducted by aliens. Most abductees reported multiple abductions over their lifetimes. On an average, humdrum day in the US, it follows, some 2,740 Americans are being taken aboard spaceships and examined, probed and raped.

Why is abduction on this scale not a major news event? There are claims that the media systematically covers up the abduction phenomenon because the media’s masters in the New World Order gain from collusion with the aliens: the New World Order trades the citizens of America for futuristic technology. Anyone who dares to whistle-blow on this cosy arrangement is threatened with permanent silence by the Men in Black.