Accidental Awareness or Alien Abduction?
© Kathleen Marden
An article in the November 11, 2014, issue of Scientific American claims that alien abductions might be nothing more than “accidental awareness” caused by psychological damage accidentally inflicted upon a patient who awakens too soon while undergoing surgery. This hypothesis is presented by Anne Skomorowsky, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and Psychosomatic Medicine Specialist at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
I received Dr. Skomorowsky’s article from a colleague who questioned if it was joke of some kind. I wondered this as well, until I discovered that it has been printed in a prestigious scientific journal. The article was loosely based upon the largest collection of data on “accidental awareness” ever assembled. It had been released by the Royal College of Anesthetists.
No mention was made of alien abduction. However, Dr. Skomorowsky’s article was linked to one written in 2008 by David V. Forrest, M.D., a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia. Dr. Forrest noted that frequently reported narratives of alien abduction, altered state of consciousness, uniformly colored figures with large eyes, nakedness, a high tech room, etc. resemble medical-surgical procedures. He cautioned that if surgeons and anesthesiologists are creating false memories of alien abduction, the medical community should take note of it. Dr. Skomorowsky carried this conjecture to fruition in her article for Scientific American.
Dr. Skomorowsky suggests that under hypnosis with Dr. Benjamin Simon, Betty and Barney Hill might have recalled episodes of “accidental awareness” from prior surgeries, and confused this as an alien abduction. She states, incorrectly, that the Hill’s story includes nude medical exams and invasive probing by bug-eyed greenish humanoids. The fact is that they Hills were not stripped naked, nor were the non-human captors bug-eyed or green, as she suggests. Betty’s underwear was not removed and Barney’s trousers were only briefly lowered for the extraction of sperm and possibly a stool sample.
Betty experienced invasive probing only when the “examiner” thrust a long needle into her navel, causing excruciating pain. She remembers this years before amniocentesis was offered in a hospital setting. Under hypnosis, Betty’s memory of this event was so traumatic that Dr. Simon decided to end the session early.
Today, based on hundreds of similar reports we suspect that this procedure is employed to extract ova. Betty had never undergone amniocentesis or abdominal laparoscopy prior to or after her abduction. They were not practiced in a hospital setting in 1964, at the time of Betty’s hypnosis sessions with Dr. Benjamin Simon. Thus, to compare this memory to a prior surgical procedure recalled through “accidental awareness” is ludicrous.
Dr. Skomorowsky conjectures another episode of “accidental awareness” when she imagines, “Assuming Barney Hill wasn’t actually brought aboard a spaceship that night in 1961, he may have experienced a flashback to his tonsillectomy. He was cold. His eyes were closed. He didn’t want to be operated on. Then he woke up under general anesthesia, to full-blown terror, surrounded by distorted beings, squinting in the blue light of the OR. Perhaps the pain and horror of awareness overwhelmed his mind, or maybe it was the anesthetic drugs, but somehow the experience disappeared from his working memory--until he and Betty came to believe they had crossed paths with an unidentified flying object on a dark and lonely New Hampshire road.” (1)
Dr. Skomorowsky fails to explain that the Hills had conscious, continuous recall of observing a silent, hovering disk-shaped craft the size of a dinner plate at arm’s length, around midnight on September 19, 1961. They reported it the US Air Force and there is documented archival evidence of this close encounter. It loomed no more than 200 feet above their 1957 Chevy before it shifted over an adjacent field and descended closer to Barney. Nor did she state that Barney was terrified when, through binoculars, he observed figures dressed in shiny black uniforms that were “somehow not human” staring down at him. Or that Barney sensed he was going to be captured “like a bug in a net” moments before he fled back to his car. (2)
She did not write of the code-like buzzing sounds that the Hills said struck the trunk of their vehicle and caused their car to vibrate. Or the tingling sensation that passed through Betty and Barney’s bodies moments before they found themselves 35 miles down the highway, brought to full consciousness by a second series of code-like buzzing sounds.
She failed to mention that the Hills had reported and documented their memories to officials months prior to their hypnosis sessions. She failed to mention their conscious recall of a road block, a fiery orb, a new dirt road lined with tall trees, or the physical and circumstantial evidence (torn dress, scraped shoes, magnetic field around the trunk of their car, broken watches, etc). Accidental Awareness does not produce physical evidence or witnesses to the craft. There were at least a dozen witnesses.
Dr. Skomorowsky’s statement demonstrates that her intent was to create a convincing hypothetical scenario in support of her conjecture, even though it is factually inaccurate. She extracted bits of information and reassembled it in an erroneous speculation.
The fact is that Dr. Simon’s hypno-analysis sessions probed Barney’s memories of childhood experiences that might have been emotionally distressing, as was his memories of the UFO and abduction under hypnosis. Dr. Simon treated Barney for the trauma he experienced as the result of a real event in 1961. When Dr. Simon probed Barney's memory of the examination room on an unearthly craft, and the events that preceded it, he spoke of being assisted out of his car. His arms were up; his elbows were out; and he was moving. But he was not walking. He stated, “I am only thinking of mental pictures because my eyes are closed, and I think I am going up a slight incline, and my feet are not bumping on the rocks.” (*Bumping on the rocks in an operating room?) “That's funny, I thought of my feet bumping on the rocks. And they are going up smoothly, but I'm afraid to open my eyes because I am being told strongly, by myself, to keep my eyes closed. Don't open them. I don't want to be operated on.” (3) A false memory does not produce physical evidence. Barney's shoes were deeply scraped and he was forced to purchase new shoes as a result of this damage.
Dr. Skomorowsky incorrectly assumes that Barney is recalling a flashback to his childhood tonsillectomy. The fact is that he answers a direct question by Dr. Simon, “Have you ever been operated on?” If she had bothered to read the next series of questions and answers, she would have known that Barney had not recalled a flashback to his tonsillectomy. He was recalling two entirely different events. First, he recalled that his childhood physician had peeked into his ear with a light. Second, he recalled being admitted to the hospital for a suspected case of appendicitis. Barney stated, “It was in the Mercy Douglas Hospital and I was in there because they thought I had appendicitis. I used to walk down the corridor and peek in the operating room, and I thought of that.” Dr. Simon asked, “Was that operating room blue?” Barney replied, “No. It has bright lights…bright lights like a bulb. But this room (on the craft) was not like that. It was spotless. I thought of everything being so clean, and I closed my eyes.” (4)
How could Dr. Skomorowsky allege that Barney was experiencing a flashback to the blue lights of an operating room? Did she not read his statement that the craft was not like the operating room he peeked into when he was child? Is this another example of constructing fiction to fit her hypothesis?
A factual account of Barney’s testimony demonstrates quite the opposite of the scenario contrived by Dr. Skomorowsky. Barney clearly states that he didn’t want to be operated on. Yet, he does not know why he thinks of an operation. His eyes are closed and he is thinking only in mental pictures. His pants are on, but his fly is open and his “private parts” feel cold.
Dr. Simon asked, “Did you feel you were going to be operated on?” Barney replied “No”. Nor did he feel that he was going to be attacked in any way. He explained, “I was lying on the table and my fly was open, and I thought, Are they putting a cup around my private parts? And then it stopped and I thought, How funny. I thought, How funny. If I keep real quiet and real still, I won't be harmed, and it will be over. And I will just stay here and pretend that I am anywhere and think of God and think of Jesus and think I am not afraid.” (5)
I am astounded that anyone could mistake a sperm sample for a tonsillectomy. Certainly the penis is not located near the tonsils. Nor was Barney experiencing a flashback to a childhood tonsillectomy. Dr. Skomorowsky seems to have no knowledge of my hypnosis transcription project or my comparative analysis of the Hills' separate statements in separate hypnosis sessions. Nor does she seem aware of Dr. Simon's reinstatement of amnesia at the end of each session. The Hills spoke of nearly identical descriptive details that were different than the details in Betty’s dreams. In fact, she seems only aware of the disinformation that was widely distributed. She can read the facts in my book "Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience."
“Accidental awareness” might present as trauma in surgical patients who awaken during surgery, but it is not a valid explanation for Betty's or Barney’s experience aboard a landed disk-shaped craft in 1961.
Footnotes:
-
Anne Skomorowsky, “Alien Abduction or “Accidental Awareness?”, Scientific American. November 11, 2014. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alien-abduction-or-accidental-awareness/
-
Walter Webb, “A Dramatic UFO Encounter in the White Mountains of New Hampshire”, October 26, 1961.
-
Barney Hill to Dr. Benjamin Simon, February 29, 1964 hypnosis session. Also on p. 117, The Interrupted Journey, John Fuller, 1966.
-
Ibid. Also on page 122, The Interrupted Journey, John Fuller, 1966.
-
Ibid. Page 123, The Interrupted Journey,John Fuller, 1966.