extraordinary%20encounters

cupancy of the bodies of grown adults, so as
not to waste valuable time.
Nyman writes, “We strongly suspect that
the feeling of dual reference . . . is unconsciously
present in all [abduction] experiencers”
(Nyman, 1989). Most investigators of
the abduction phenomenon disagree, and indeed
when Nyman presented his ideas at a
1992 conference held at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, some questioners accused
him of leading his subjects into confabulation.
They were particularly critical of his
practice of asking the subjects to recall “memories”
of their lives in the womb. Among
Nyman’s defenders was Harvard University
psychologist John E. Mack, who was also engaged
in extensive hypnotic probing of ostensible
abductees.
In a book published two years later, Ma c k
told the story of a young man he identifies
only as Paul, “one of an increasing group of
a b d u c t e e s . . . who have discove red that they
h a ve a dual identity of an alien (they do not
use that word) and a human being.” Pa u l
was convinced that he was on Earth to show
people how to love and accept love — t h i s
e ven before he found his alien identity
under hypnosis.
Paul had gone to another psychologist to
examine some of his life’s problems, including
a conviction that he had seen a weird humanoid
creature. Hypnotized, he spoke of
other encounters with other strange beings,
including one when he was two or three years
old. The psychologist did not know what to
make of these stories, and he and Paul parted
company; Paul eventually found his way to
Mack.
With Mack, Paul explored an apparent
memory of a further encounter, this one when
he was six and a half. He spoke of seeing a
being inside his house and of sensing that the
two of them were “linked in a way.” They
went outside together, where they met two
groups—four or five each—of humanoids.
Though they did not look human, Paul felt
comfortable, even joyful, to be in their company.
They apparently felt the same; they
Dual reference 89
hugged him and gave every indication of feeling
great affection for him. The whole experience
felt “like home.” Subsequently he was
taken aboard a ship, an experience he sensed
he had undergone in other lives. One of the
beings told him that he was from their planet.
The alien spoke of human beings’ inability to
“truly open up to another” and of their hostility
to the visiting extraterrestrials.
During the session Paul alternated between
his human and alien selves. In the latter, he
spoke of the nature of higher consciousness
and of humans’ destructive ways. He also expressed
homesickness for the ship and the
planet from which he had come. He “remembered”
earlier visits to Earth, including interactions—apparently
tens of millions of years
ago—with intelligent, gentle dinosaurs. In another
instance, the ship on which he was traveling—in
earthling guise—with extraterrestrial
companions rescued the surviving
occupants of a crashed craft that went down
in the desert after being shot down by “men in
uniforms.” Two of the crew died and had to
be abandoned in the face of advancing soldiers.
Paul felt, in this instance, ashamed to be
human; yet, in a broader context, he felt certain
that “peace and love” were slowly spreading
over the Earth and that he had a role to
play in opening up human beings to larger,
benevolent cosmic truths.
According to Mack, Paul has learned powerful
psychic healing powers from his ongoing
interactions with his extraterrestrial friends.
He has been given a great deal of information
on their “unbelievable” technology but has
been forbidden to share it (Mack, 1994a).
Mack rejects the theory that such attachments
of abductee to abductor are analogous
to the so-called Stockholm Syndrome, in
which a hostage comes to identify with his or
her captor. There is, he says, “little sense that
the alien identity is primarily a product of
‘identification with the aggressor.’ . . . Rather,
the dual identity appears to be a fundamental
dimension of the consciousness expansion or
opening that is an intrinsic aspect of the abduction
phenomenon itself” (Mack, 1994b).