UFOs: The Public Deceived by Philip Klass

UFOs: The Public Deceived by Philip Klass

Author:Philip Klass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-17T01:42:00+00:00


Until the mid-1960s-nearly two decades into the UFO era - there were no U.S. reports of persons who claimed to have been abducted and taken aboard a flying saucer against their will. Back in the early 1950s, religious cultist George Adamski coauthored a book in which he claimed that he had frequently accepted invitations to visit a giant "mother-ship," populated by handsome Venusians, Martians, and Saturnians. Adamski claimed his gracious extraterrestrial hosts had flown him past the backside of the moon, then hidden to terrestrial observers, where he reported seeing snow and treecovered mountains as well as cities and UFO landing strips. But most serious UFOlogists rejected Adamski's tale even before mid-1966, when American Lunar Orbiter satellites began to return photos of the backside of the lunar surface that showed none of the things that Adamski had reported seeing.

Then, in October 1966, Look magazine published a two-part series on a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, couple - Barney and Betty Hill - suggesting that they had been abducted five years earlier and taken aboard a flying saucer, where they were given a physical examination by strange-looking creatures. The articles, and a subsequent book, were written by John G. Fuller (who later would write books about a "psychic surgeon" who allegedly could remove diseased organs from the body without making a physical incision and about the ghosts of an Eastern Airlines flight crew, who allegedly haunt its aircraft.)

During the nearly two decades since the Hills' story emerged, approximately two hundred persons have come forward with similar stories of "UFO abductions," usually claiming that they too were examined by curious UFOnauts. But in each of these incidents the "victim" did not report the incident until hours, weeks, months, or even years after the event allegedly occurred-until November 5, 1975, when a curious incident occurred near Heber, Arizona. Travis Walton was the first "UFO abductee" to be reported to law-enforcement officers while the "victim" was still missing. It would be five days before Travis would reappear, making it the longest "UFO abduction" on record. Additionally six other persons, members of a timbercutting crew, reported that they had witnessed the initial part of the incident.

The Travis Walton case was thoroughly investigated by APRO, the Tucson, Arizona, UFO group headed by Mr. and Mrs. L. J. Lorenzen, who have been active in the field of UFOlogy for more than a quarter of a century. In recent years, APRO has focused much of its efforts on "UFO abductions" and thus presumably has acquired expertise in such investigations. When the Lorenzens were interviewed for an article published in August 1977 in UFO Report and were asked "What's the most impressive UFO case you've ever investigated?" Mrs. Lorenzen replied: "I'd say the Travis Walton incident." Her husband did not disagree with her choice.

In the late spring of 1976, after the Walton incident had been selected as the most impressive UFO case of 1975 by a Blue Ribbon Panel for a prize by the National Enquirer, the case was strongly endorsed by individual members of the panel.



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