AudioBlog: When UFO Abduction Research Went Mainstream

by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”In 1981, a new narrative became firmly established as part of the UFO mystery with the publication of Budd Hopkins’s book Missing Time. A large part of the book consists of transcriptions of recordings made during hypnosis sessions where the subjects described being taken aboard craft by 3-4 feet tall creatures that performed medical procedures on them. The descriptions of the creatures were similar to descriptions of beings that would become known as “the greys,” which are the now iconic creatures with large black eyes that became commonly reported after Whitley Strieber’s 1987 book Communion. The eyes of the creatures reported in Hopkins’s book vary. The book came out in July of 1981 and Hopkins, along with Dr. Aphrodite Clamar, a psychotherapist hired to conduct some of the hypnosis sessions, gave interviews to the press. From this point on, the UFO Abduction phenomenon began to receive serious consideration from the mainstream press with Hopkins as the leading authority for the rest of the decade. Read more →