Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD
trying to find evidence of life after death. If my testimony is worth
quoting, it seems clear he hasn't found much. Many letter writers
concluded that since I had worked on the possibility of extraterrestrial
life, I must 'believe' in UFOs; or conversely that, if I was
sceptical about UFOs, I must embrace the absurd belief that
humans are the only intelligent beings in the Universe. There's
something about this subject unconducive to clear thinking.
Here, without further comment, is a representative sampling of
my mail on the subject:
• I wonder how some of our fellow animals may describe their
encounters with us. They see a large hovering object making a
terrible noise above them. They begin to run and feel a sharp
pain in their side. Suddenly they fall to the ground . . . Several
man-creatures approach them carrying strange-looking instruments.
They examine your sexual organs and teeth. They place
a net under you and then let it take you in the air with a strange
device. After all the examinations, they then clamp a strange
metal object on your ear. Then, just as suddenly as they had
appeared, they are gone. Eventually, muscle control returns,
and a poor disoriented creature staggers off into the forest, not
knowing [whether] what just transpired was a nightmare or a
reality.
• I was sexually abused as a child. In my recovery I have drawn
many 'space beings' and have felt many times I was being
overpowered, held down, and the sensation of having left my
body to float around the room. None of the abductee accounts
really come as a surprise to someone who has dealt with
childhood sexual abuse issues . . . Believe me, I would much
rather have blamed my abuse on a space alien than have to face
the truth about what happened to me with the adults I was
supposed to be able to trust. It's been driving me crazy to hear
some of my friends speak of their memories that imply they
have been abducted by aliens ... I keep saying to them that
this is the ultimate victim role in which we as adults have no
power when these little gray men come to us in our sleep! This
is not real. The ultimate victim role is the one between an
abusive parent and a victimized child.
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