The author of this article, Dominique Kallimanopoulos, studied anthropology at Wesleyan University and has worked as a researcher, writer, translator and editor in the fields of human rights, cultural studies and psychology. A study of kidnapping in Africa and experiences of kidnapping from other cultures by Dr. Mack and Dominique, used in Dr. Mack's book Passport to Space (1999).
John Mack and I were at Ariel, a small elementary school near Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, listening to Elsa (this is not her real name) describe her encounter with an "alien" being on September 16, 1996. A total of 60 children, ages six to twelve Years reported that they saw one large and several smaller "spaceships" land - or rather hover - over a short bush adjacent to the school playground.
The twelve children we interviewed over the course of two days all described the same event with consistent consistency of details. Besides the "spaceships", the children also saw two "strange creatures"; one of them sat on one of the ships, and the second ran back and forth across the grass, "bouncing as if it were on the moon, but not quite so strongly."
According to their descriptions, the creatures were black with long heads, "eyes the size of a rugby ball," with slender arms and legs. This event took place during the morning break when the teachers were in the meeting. Many of the younger children were very frightened and cried. "At first I thought it was a gardener," one fourth grader told us, "and then I realized it was an alien."
According to the children, the event lasted for about fifteen minutes; then the ships slowly disappeared from sight. But even in a state of fear, many of the children also had curiosity and interest in the strange creatures they saw, whose eyes in particular required close attention.
Elsa told us that she thought the creatures wanted to tell us something about our future, about how "the end of the world will come, maybe because we are not looking beyond our planet or the air." She said that she was bad at heart when she returned home that day. “It’s as if all the trees are falling and there’s no more air. People will die. These thoughts came from a person - from his eyes."
Isabelle, a ten-year-old girl collected and clearly expressing her thoughts, echoed Elsa's feelings. “He just stared at us. He was scary. We tried not to look at him because he was scary. He drew my eyes and feelings to him. " When she looked at this creature, her "consciousness" received the message: "We are causing harm to the Earth."
The Ariel School event is one of the most significant in recent UFO history. For the first time such a large group of people witnessed the observation of the simultaneous appearance of spaceships and alien beings. After a BBC reporter called us and told us about the strange objects and ships that glided through the skies of Zimbabwe two nights before September 16, when the dramatic event took place at Ariel's school, we decided to investigate and obtain first-hand information.
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International Alien Abduction Research Project
Over the course of two years, the Extraordinary Experience Research Program (PEER, 1993/1994) studied reports of UFO sightings and alien abductions received from different countries and different cultural layers. One of the central questions of the study was to establish whether this phenomenon occurs in a similar way in other countries; if so, which of its aspects remain homogeneous and unchanged in different cultures, and which of them - or their interpretation - are influenced by cultural differences.
In addition to sending members on trips to Brazil and Africa, as well as Canada and the United States to interview local Indians, PEER has also sponsored research work in Japan, Scandinavia and Chile, and is in constant contact with recipients. collision experience”from Europe, Iran, China, Australia, Mexico and Puerto Rico. We compared the experiences of abduction and shamanic travel and possession. We have studied the myths related to beings from heaven and to other worlds and dimensions. The results of our work have surprised us many times.
Around the world, people are experiencing alien abductions, in many cases seemingly similar to testimonies in the United States; however, cultural traditions give different shapes to these events, making them different from one another. For example, in Brazil, which is replete with traditions of mediumship and communication with spirits and ancestors, "visits of aliens" are valued above visits of ancestral spirits due to the high-tech space travel of aliens, reflecting the cultural disposition of the Brazilians towards the development of the country.
The result is colorful variations. In one Brazilian home we visited, a mother who traditionally dominated the family because of her association with the spirits of the family's ancestors felt her power threatened when her son began to communicate with aliens.
The American Indians we spoke with said that the current activities of the "people from the stars" indicate an imbalance between Earth, humanity and space. A Hopi elder in Arizona prophesies, as do many of the abducted, about the end of civilization. "There will be a great cleaning," he said.
The abduction experience calls into question the nature of reality
Many of the aspects of the abduction experience have become familiar: the dizzying light emerging through the windshield or bedroom window, and small gray creatures with massive pupilless eyes that are attractive and terrifying; paralysis that grips a person when his body floats through the air, walls and doors of spaceships; surgical operations, the purpose of which is sometimes treatment, and often an experiment.
Sometimes abductees report their participation in the creation of a new species - a hybrid of a human and an alien, about embryos developing in artificial wombs, similar to aquariums and located in rows along the walls of ships. Others talk about apocalyptic visions, mysterious symbols, and silent telepathic warnings.
The abduction accounts have given rise to many questions about how they should be interpreted and what kind of therapeutic assistance should be provided to the abducted. The contradictions caused by this phenomenon are reminiscent of other cases of confrontation in scientific circles, throughout history, accompanying the experience of a collision with the anomalous. Evans Wentz, an anthropologist who studied fairies in the Celtic tradition, found it extremely difficult to define his search in a scientific context. "These mysteries have long fascinated scientists, who are not allowed to ignore them by their curiosity, no matter how they try to remain true to their predominantly Newtonian tradition."
William James, a Harvard social psychologist, also pondered these questions. In his essay What Psychological Investigation Achieved, published in 1890, he wrote: “The ideal of every science is a complete and self-contained system of truth … Therefore, phenomena that cannot be classified within this system are paradoxical absurdities and must be considered how wrong."
Such an undertaking, which is essentially a study of the consciousness of different cultures, entails special difficulties, including the definition of subjectivity and objectivity, “real” and mythical. For us Westerners, the difficulty of integrating the fruits of our dreams and visions - our experiences in a state of altered consciousness - into a shared reality that is shared with others severely limits our way of formulating questions and our assumptions on which our research work is based.
To grasp the relevance of the abduction experience to individuals, we must become tolerant of the overwhelming variety of messages and visits that people receive from entities and beings "out of this world." Only by opening our minds to this richer context will we begin to understand the meaning of the abduction phenomenon here and elsewhere.
The White Bushman, Laurence Van Der Post, said: “People have always laughed at Bushman stories and said they didn't make sense. And suddenly I realized that they were meaningless just because we had lost the key and code. We've lost the way to decipher these stories."
How can we decipher the strange and incomprehensible stories of those who have encountered this phenomenon? Throughout the world, abduction stories contain paradoxes: some abductees are raped and sometimes tortured in painful procedures; others are healed, taught and cared for; still others go through all of the above. The phenomenon of abduction tempts us with opportunities - both frightening and alluring. How can we decipher this information and these stories?
How can we live so close to this "world behind the veil"? One glimpse of the alien “other” encourages us to change our earthly attitudes, leading to the suspension of our beliefs, which is one of the pleasures associated with anthropological fieldwork. Only by finding and occupying what anthropologists call "limbic" space can we free ourselves for a new perception of life and reality.