Budd Hopkins
Template:Short description Template:Infobox person
Elliot Budd Hopkins (June 15, 1931 – August 21, 2011)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /> was an American artist, author, and ufologist. He was a prominent figure in alien abduction phenomena and related UFO research.
Early lifeEdit
Elliot Budd Hopkins was born in 1931. He was raised in Wheeling, West Virginia.<ref name="Fox, Margalit">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)">Template:Cite journal</ref> He lived with his parents, Elliot B. Hopkins and Eleanor A. Hopkins, brother, Stuart, and sister, Eleanor.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At age two, Hopkins contracted polio.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> During the long recovery process, Hopkins developed an interest in drawing<ref name="Schnabel, Jim">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> and watercolors,<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> which eventually led him to Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in art history in 1953.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> It was here, Hopkins was exposed to art with "a capital A",<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/> and attended a lecture by Robert Motherwell that first introduced him to the "automatic, gestural approach that Motherwell espoused."<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/>
From Oberlin, Hopkins moved to New York City, where he met Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and other abstract expressionists.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /><ref name="Fox, Margalit" /><ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)">Template:Cite book</ref> For a time, Hopkins studied art history at Columbia University and worked a low-level job selling tickets at the Museum of Modern Art.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/><ref name="Chronicle-Telegram (May 1967)">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> His experimentation with collage techniques and style as an abstract expressionist<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> won him national acclaim.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/>
Art careerEdit
Hopkins' first solo show was held in New York City in 1956, the same year he met and married his first wife of thirteen years, Joan Rich.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/> In 1963, Hopkins' work was included in American Painters, a film documentary of American artists and styles with commentary from Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art, Thomas Hess of Art News Magazine, Sidney Janis, gallery director, and Harold Rosenberg, art critic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1969, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquired Hopkins' Norbeck Yellow Vertical, describing him as "a leading American painter who has successfully brought together the vocabularies of painterly abstraction and hard edge painting."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1972, Hopkins was among five artists whose work was commissioned as part of a statewide effort to support the creative arts in West Virginia. It was, Governor Arch Moore claimed, "the first project of this kind to be undertaken in the nation." The piece was to be displayed in the state's cultural center located near the Capitol.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1976, Hopkins was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for painting.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ExhibitsEdit
Hopkins exhibited his paintings and sculptures in museums, galleries such as Andre Zarre, Levis Fine Art and Poindexter (New York) and Jan Cicero (Chicago), and universities throughout the United States.<ref name="Chronicle-Telegram (May 1967)"/><ref name="Perrault, John">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Charleston Gazette 1973"/><ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref><ref name="Hilton, Kramer">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Bunn, Austin"/><ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/><ref name="Appelle, Stuart">Template:Cite journalTemplate:Unreliable source?</ref>
Hopkins had a major retrospective exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in mid-2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Whitney Museum,<ref name="Charleston Gazette 1973">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> Washington Gallery of Modern Art,<ref name="Charleston Gazette 1973"/> Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, the British Museum,<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> include Hopkins' work in their permanent collections.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)" /><ref name="Brown, Calvin">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Art styleEdit
Hopkins' paintings in the 1960s combined the precise, hard-edge geometric shapes he was enthralled with and drawn to as a child<ref name="Art, Life and UFOs">Template:Cite book</ref> with gestural, atmospheric painting characteristic of second- and later-generation Abstract Expressionists. "I had come to understand that an abstract painting at its most powerful was a kind of aesthetic scrim behind which lurks a concealed, obsessive 'thing' or image of some kind, transformed, made palatable by the artist's mediating skills."<ref name="Myers, Terry R.">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Hopkins viewed collage as an artistic technique and a philosophical, aesthetic means of unifying a disjointed and fragmented world. He saw collage, the assemblage of fragments and varying points of view, in the poetry, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, and, especially, motion pictures of his day:<ref name="Modernism and the collage">Template:Cite journal</ref>
"Consciously or unconsciously, contemporary artists work to create harmony from distinctly jarring material, forcing warring ideas, materials and spatial systems into a tense and perhaps arbitrary detente. Seen most broadly, the presence of the collage aesthetic is the sole defining quality of modernism in all the arts."<ref name="Modernism and the collage"/>
Hopkins worked to achieve harmony, clarity and precision while maintaining a sense of mystery:
"I like neither extreme in art wholeheartedly, neither the purified world of geometrical art nor the free, indulgent world of Expressionism."<ref name="O'Doherty, Brian">Template:Cite journal</ref>
In the 1970s, Hopkins' work included a series of assembled paintings, incorporating architectural elements. Sculptures such as Gallatin's Drive I, White City Hall, New York Wall II and others bore urban names and echoed elements of New York City's skyline. Many of his works during this time featured circular shapes with primary colors set against black and white backgrounds suggestive of Piet Mondrian.<ref name="Myers, Terry R."/>
Later, Hopkins included abstracted figures in his sculptural pieces. While moving away from Abstract Expressionism, Hopkins retained in his work the use of intense colors and hard-edged forms. His works of the 1980s, including Temples and Guardians, featured these "sentinals" who were, according to Hopkins, "participating in a frozen ritual, fixed – absolutely – within a privileged space..."<ref name="Myers, Terry R."/> Though Hopkins denied any connection, some critics viewed these ritualistic pieces as an extension of Hopkins' fascination with alien beings.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/><ref name="Perrault, John"/> Hopkins viewed his sculpted guardians not as human per se, but as magical, fierce, noble robots of the unconscious.<ref name="Perrault, John"/>
Interest in UFOsEdit
As a child, Hopkins experienced, firsthand, Orson Welles' 1938 radio play The War of the Worlds. This both terrified Hopkins and his family and left psychic scars. He considered the radio play a dramatic, theatrical hoax and, because of his childhood scare, felt it added to his skepticism about alien invasions rather than enamor him to the idea of it.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/>
His interest in UFOs and alien visitations was renewed when, in August 1964,<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/> Hopkins and two others<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> reported experiencing a day time sighting of an unidentified flying object, or UFO, in the form of a darkish, elliptical object off Cape Cod in Truro, Massachusetts.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/><ref name="NOVA - Hopkins"/> Dissatisfied with the response Hopkins received when he reported the incident to nearby Otis Air National Guard Base, he suspected a possible government cover-up.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> Hopkins began reading about UFOs<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/> and collecting stories of people who claimed to have experienced contact with alien beings.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/>
In 1975, Hopkins was approached by George O'Barski who, purportedly, witnessed alien figures step out of a spacecraft and take soil samples at North Hudson Park in North Bergen, New Jersey.<ref name="Larry King Live" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Hopkins, Ted Bloecher, then director of New York State's Mutual UFO Network (MUFON),<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/> and Jerry Stoehrer, also of MUFON,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/> investigated the incident, interviewing the witness and taking soil samples.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/>
After Hopkins' account of the O'Barski case appeared in The Village Voice in 1976,<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/><ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/> he began receiving regular letters from other UFO witnesses,<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> including a few cases of missing time, seemingly inexplicable gaps in abductees' memories.<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger"/> Hopkins, using data from his investigations with Bloecher and psychologist Aphrodite Clamar,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/> expanded this idea in his book Missing Time.Template:Citation needed
Behavioral patterns extrapolated from abductee letters led Hopkins to identify core emotional responses based on their experiences: fear, awe or wonderment at alien technological abilities, affection toward their captors (which he likened to the "Patty Hearst" syndrome), anger, and helplessness.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)" /> He believed aliens were either incapable of understanding the psychological effects of their encounters with humans or that they were a "callous, indifferent, amoral race bent solely upon gratifying its own scientific needs at whatever cost to us."<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/>
After the publication of his book Missing Time in 1981,<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/> Hopkins became known as much for his UFO and abduction research as for his art.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/><ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> As a self-described humanist,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/> Hopkins saw his work with alleged alien abduction victims as a way to bring attention to an otherwise marginalized part of society.<ref name="Appelle, Stuart"/> His follow-up book Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods, published in 1987,<ref name="Flaherty, Robert Pearson"/> helped establish Hopkins as a prominent leader in the UFO movement.<ref name="Crosby, Deon"/>
Hopkins' Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods (1987), spent four weeks on The New York Times Paperback Best Seller list.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It and other best-sellers on the phenomena, including Whitley Strieber's Communion (1987), <ref name="Newman & Baumeister">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Davidson, Keay">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Broad, William J.">Template:Cite news</ref> prompted stories of alien abduction by people who read the books.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /><ref name="Luckhurst, Roger">Template:Cite journal</ref> Abductee Linda Cortile had also participated in Hopkins' support group, starting five months before her alleged abduction, and read his book, Intruders.<ref name="King, Jeffrey B."/>
In 1989, Hopkins organized the Intruders Foundation in Manhattan<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> to provide support for alleged victims of alien abduction, conduct research and investigations, and promote public awareness of the phenomenon.<ref name="Crosby, Deon">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="McLaughlin, Paul"/>
The 1992 made-for-television film Intruders featured fictionalized characters based on the works of Hopkins and psychiatrist John E. Mack,<ref name="Brennan, Patricia">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> and, like Hopkins' book of the same name, portrayed abduction scenarios.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/>
In 1996, Hopkins' book Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions was published.<ref name="Dewan, William J."/> The book portrayed an abduction case that was alleged to have occurred in late 1989 near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.<ref name="Vick, Karl"/>
Hopkins and his third wife, Carol Rainey, co-wrote the 2003 book Sight Unseen, Science, UFO Invisibility and Transgenic Beings.<ref name="Rainey, Carol"/>
Alien abduction claimsEdit
Hopkins is often credited with popularizing the idea of alien abductions as genetic experimentation<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/><ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/><ref name="Laycock, Joseph"/><ref name="Kevles, Bettyann">Template:Cite news</ref> through the publication of his book Intruders.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> He has been dubbed "father of the abduction movement" by some.<ref name="Vick, Karl">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref>
Hopkins, along with Elizabeth Slater, who conducted psychological tests of abductees,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/> likened these experiences to rape,<ref name="Laycock, Joseph"/> specifically for the purpose of human reproductive capabilities.<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger"/><ref name="Kevles, Bettyann"/> In fact, Hopkins was inclined to dismiss his clients' conscious memory of abuse for more alien explanations.<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger"/> He was an alarmist, rather than a spiritualist, in his approach to the alien visitations, believing the visitations to be apocalyptic<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger"/> and that no good could come of these encounters.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> He described victims' experiences as severe and nightmarish.<ref name="Geist, William E."/>
While both men and women reported to Hopkins abductions by aliens that included sexual encounters, allegedly for some form of extraterrestrial eugenics,<ref name="Fox, Margalit" /><ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)" /><ref name="NOVA - Hopkins" /> women in particular seemed to be a part of a "highly technological colonization scheme."<ref name="Flaherty, Robert Pearson">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="White, Luise">Template:Cite journal</ref> These victims were, reportedly, taken to spaceships, impregnated by extraterrestrials,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/> then later as the hybrid baby developed, returned to the ship to have the fetus removed and given up to the alien parent.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> The alien parents, purportedly, had the ability to communicate telepathically with their child.<ref name="Flaherty, Robert Pearson"/> On occasion, according to victims' reports as told by Hopkins, the human parents were allowed to see their human-alien hybrid, or transgenic, children.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (March 1999)">Template:Cite journal</ref> Once a victim, according to Hopkins, abductees were powerless over the intrusions and susceptible to additional kidnappings<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/> which may extend to their (human) children.<ref name="McLaughlin, Paul"/> "If people have had one abduction experience," Hopkins said, "then they will have others."<ref name="Bunn, Austin"/>
Critics of Hopkins' views on alien abductions state that the alien abduction phenomenon is not as mysterious as Hopkins makes it out to be. Much of the phenomenon can, according to researchers such as Ronald K. Siegel of the University of California, Los Angeles, be explained as the consequence of "normal hallucinatory powers of the brain."<ref name="Vick, Karl"/>
Sleep paralysis, for example, can produce the feeling that one is paralyzed or has difficulty moving. It can also produce the effect of floating or the sense of an out-of-body experience.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/> Sleep paralysis occurs in a transition time and the person is in a dream-like state, hallucinations can occur just before falling asleep (hynogogic hallucination) or just after (hypnopompic hallucination).<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/><ref name="Gazette Telegraph February 1996">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> These hallucinations feel real to the person experiencing sleep paralysis and can often be accompanied by sensory features: musty smells, shuffling sounds, visions of ghosts, aliens, and monsters.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/><ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> Neuroscientist Michael Persinger of Laurentian University<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, believes that these sensations can spontaneously occur in some people, given the right set of circumstances, leading to the kind of feelings of "tremendous meaningfulness and fear" sometimes expressed by alleged alien abductees.<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> Hopkins rejected the idea of sleep paralysis, calling it "the big explanation du jour", and an inadequate explanation for those who experience abductions outside the bedroom.<ref name="Larry King Live"/>
Roper pollEdit
Hopkins partnered with David M. Jacobs, history professor at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, and John Mack, psychiatry professor at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts,<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> to design a Roper poll to find out how many of the nearly 6,000 respondents surveyed had experienced what the three believed to be symptoms indicative of alien abductions.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/> The poll was released in 1991. If generalized to the population at large, the survey results indicated that several million Americans are regularly affected by alien abductions.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /><ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/>
Critics of the survey questioned the validity of the survey questions themselves and pointed out the implausibility that an average of 340 Americans could be abducted daily, given the fact that no physical evidence to date exists for any UFO abduction.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/>
Support groupsEdit
Hopkins met and encouraged self-proclaimed abductees to discuss their experiences by holding free monthly group therapy sessions.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Bunn, Austin">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Geist, William E.">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript" /><ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> Groups such as this were reported at the time as the most recent development in UFO-mania.<ref name="Geist, William E." /> Attendees represented people from all walks of life: attorneys, police officers, teachers, airline pilots, psychologists, psychiatrists, and the like.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /> Drawing as many as 20 people each month, these support meetings were, according to Hopkins, like other New York social events, complete with "dinner and a lot of social chatter."<ref name="Geist, William E." />
Hopkins, trained as an artist not as a psychotherapist or social worker,<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> described the people who attended these groups as veterans of trauma.<ref name="Geist, William E."/> They were, in his view, victims who experienced often intrusive and painful physical examinations by their alien abductors<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/><ref name="Dewan, William J."/> and whose stories were best told through hypnosis.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)" /><ref name="Geist, William E." /><ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> Abduction memories, according to Hopkins, rarely emerged unaided and may, at first, present to the abductees as "vague anxieties, specific phobias, bad dreams, fragmentary and disturbing memories, or what seemed like an explicable episode of missing time."<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/><ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/><ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/>
Many of his attendees contacted Hopkins after reading his books<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger" /> or newspaper advertisements that included his books as reference material,<ref name="Gillespie, Annette">Template:Cite news</ref> seeing him on television programs such as Will Shriner,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Sally Jessy Raphael,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the Marsha Warfield Show,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Charles Grodin<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and others.<ref name="Geist, William E."/><ref name="Bullard, Thomas E.">Template:Cite journal</ref> Some critics interpreted these television appearances as a way for Hopkins and other UFO authors such as Whitley Strieber to recruit possible abductees.<ref name="Bullard, Thomas E."/>
Still other support group members attended the many UFO conferences held within the United States and internationally at which Hopkins was a speaker.<ref name="Crosby, Deon" /><ref name="Bullard, Thomas E." /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="McCormack, Jerry R.">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
HypnosisEdit
Although Hopkins had no formal psychological training,<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> he watched other professionals over an eight-year period and developed his own techniques.<ref name="McLaughlin, Paul"/> In his opinion, these professionals, notably Robert Naiman, Aphrodite Clamar, and Girard Franklin were quite skeptical of the reality of abduction claims, yet all uncovered detailed abduction scenarios from their patients.<ref name="Jacobs, David M.">Template:Cite book</ref>
According to Hopkins, any feeling of uneasiness about a place, or any sense of lost time (that is often accounted for by daydreaming), could be attributed to alien abduction.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/> He believed aliens were capable of blocking or submerging memories in the people they abducted.<ref name="Bunn, Austin"/><ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> Despite critics' warnings that practices such as the ones in which Hopkins engaged may cause serious psychological damage to the alleged abductees,<ref name="Daily Herald 1988">Template:Cite news</ref> Hopkins insisted that regressive hypnosis<ref name="McLaughlin, Paul"/> could unlock the experiences of his clients.<ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/><ref name="McLaughlin, Paul"/> He gave little credence to experts such as psychologist Robert A. Baker, University of Kentucky,<ref name="Daily Herald 1988"/> whose scientific inquiries into the subject revealed that hypnosis can "transform a dream, a hallucination or fantasy into a seemingly-real event."<ref name="Daily Herald 1988"/> This transformation is known as the fabrication of spurious memories and is particularly common under hypnosis.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/>
By 1995, Hopkins had worked with hundreds of abductees.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/><ref name="Geist, William E."/> It was during these hypnosis sessions that Hopkins' belief in UFO abduction deepened. To him, the purported similarities among client stories<ref name="NOVA - Hopkins"/> lent credibility to the abductees' stories. In actuality, the details of abductee stories varied greatly.<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger"/>
The idea of repressed memories has, largely, been dismissed by the scientific community.<ref name="Laycock, Joseph"/> Psychological research demonstrates that, rather than forget what has happened in a traumatic event, most people find they are unable to stop thinking about it.<ref name="Laycock, Joseph"/> What concerns critics is that the details of UFO abduction stories, such as the ones Hopkins describes in his work, usually occur only after consultation with some sort of UFO investigator<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/> who already has an inclination to believe in alien abduction scenarios. UFO critic Philip J. Klass characterizes these practices as a dangerous game.<ref name="Daily Herald 1988"/>
UFO abductee stories are well-documented in the psychological literature and are considered culturally based. In other parts of the world, fairies, leprechauns, and other creatures replace aliens as abductors.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/> Some liken extraterrestrial abduction to a secular version of the religious dream.<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/><ref name="Rainey, Carol"/> According to Baker, "These people are literally talked into believing they've been abducted."<ref name="Daily Herald 1988" />
The hypnotist can also, knowingly or unknowingly, create "memories" of an event that never occurred in their patients.<ref name="Daily Herald 1988" /><ref name="Keay, Davidson">Template:Cite news</ref> In May 1987, psychologist and hypnotist Martin Reiser appeared on ABC's 20/20 with host Lynn Sherr, an episode that also featured Hopkins and alleged UFO abductees, asserting that there are reasonable explanations for UFO sightings.<ref name="Zuckerman, Faye">Template:Cite news</ref> His belief was that Hopkins pressured his subjects into believing UFOs exist.<ref name="Zuckerman, Faye" />
Elizabeth Loftus, on NOVA's Kidnapped by UFOs?, which aired on April 1, 1997 and included a taped hypnosis session conducted by Hopkins, identified "subtle but powerful suggestive cues" as Hopkins worked with two children as part of the investigative portion of the show.<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> She cautioned that someone convinced of a false memory, can react emotionally to it and elaborate on the story as if it were real. Social psychologist Richard Ofshe concurred that suggestive influence may be a factor in Hopkins' support groups.<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/>
Of Hopkins' book, Intruders, Bettyann Kevles of The New York Times wrote, "I am willing to believe that he believes everything he has written. I am also willing to believe that Kathie and the others experienced inexplicable time losses and strange dreams that may have not been dreams. But I am wary of the accuracy of the information he gathered through hypnosis. This kind of testimony is disallowed in most courts because hypnosis is not thoroughly understood and has proved unreliable as a source of evidence. Witnesses recall events that never occurred, but that they are later, on being brought out of hypnosis, convinced really happened."<ref name="Kevles, Bettyann"/>
Hopkins responded to critics by saying, "I have often frequently invited interested therapists, journalists and academics to observe hypnosis sessions. Theoretical psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, who has held teaching positions at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and psychiatrist Donald F. Klein, director of research at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and professor of psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, are but two of those who have observed my work firsthand. None of these visitors ... have reported anything that suggested I was attempting to lead the subjects."<ref name="Jacobs, David M."/>
EvidenceEdit
Physical proof of alien abduction for Hopkins, came in the form of scoop marks,<ref name="NOVA - Hopkins">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Larry King Live">Template:Cite news</ref> or indentations of the skin, scars or cuts<ref name="NOVA - Hopkins" /> on the mouth, nose, ears or genital,<ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /> or unexplained bruises<ref name="NOVA - Hopkins" /> that might clear up in a day,<ref name="Brodeur, Nicole">Template:Cite news</ref> and abductee claims of implants<ref name="Schnabel, Jim" /><ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)" /> interpreted as control or monitoring devices similar to those used by (human) scientists to track and tag animals in the wild.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Ethical Implications)"/><ref name="McLaughlin, Paul" /><ref name="Bullard, Thomas E."/> He also believed the alien spacecraft left marks on the ground where they landed and that the aliens could be photographed.<ref name="Larry King Live"/>
Hopkins points to "tightly imagined testimonies"<ref name="Bunn, Austin"/> by abductees, included victims' stories of observing unconventional objects in the sky,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/> in which they witnessed unusual activity (such as aliens digging for soil samples),<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)"/> flying through the air <ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> or being transported to a ship,<ref name="Dewan, William J."/> a sense of being watched or the presence of hooded beings near the bed at night,<ref name="Dewan, William J.">Template:Cite journal</ref> a sense of paralysis or immobilization while lying in bed or in their cars,<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/> impressions of flying or passing through closed windows or walls, a feeling of having been outside upon awakening, invisibility (both alien and human)<ref name="1993 MUFON Symposium">Template:Cite news</ref> and, most especially, a sense of missing or lost time.<ref name="Fox, Margalit" /><ref name="Brodeur, Nicole"/>
Hopkins believed in his data collection techniques, as outlined in Missing Time,<ref name="Luckhurst, Roger"/> and insisted, despite questions from other researchers and skeptics, that his findings were solidly based in evidence that, cumulatively, was overwhelming.<ref name="Larry King Live"/> Despite Hopkins' oft-repeated assertion of "powerful evidence" for alien abduction,<ref name="King, Jeffrey B.">Template:Cite journal</ref> critics plagued his career with calls for tangible proof, which were never forthcoming: DNA from the hybrid babies,<ref name="Rainey, Carol">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Klass, Phillip J. SUN#17">Template:Cite news</ref> proof of implants that were alluded to (particularly in the case of alleged abductee Linda Cortile)<ref name="Klass, Phillip J. SUN #18">Template:Cite news</ref> but never recovered,<ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript"/><ref name="Stefula, Joseph J.">Template:Cite journal</ref> photographs or videotapes of space craft or aliens.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/> Critics, including his former wife, Rainey, expressed concern that UFO researcher leaders were not held to scholastic, scientific, or ethical standards.<ref name="Rainey, Carol"/>
Still others question whether it would be likely that alien abductors could actually float people through solid walls <ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/> and, if they could, wonder at how these people could escape detection, particularly in urban settings where there would, potentially, be millions of people around to witness the event.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister"/><ref name="Klass, Phillip J. SUN#17" /> Hopkins' response to the lack of UFO sightings by bystanders was to suggest that aliens could make themselves and their abductees invisible.<ref name="1993 MUFON Symposium"/>
The lack of physical evidence and the inconsistencies and implausibility of the alien abduction stories led some critics, including Carl Sagan and author Jodi Dean, to question whether these memories are the product of internal, rather than external experiences.<ref name="NOVA - Hopkins"/><ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript" /><ref name="Dean, Jodi">Template:Cite book</ref>
CriticismEdit
Critics of Hopkins' position that on alien abduction accounts had "an absolute core of reality" <ref name="Kidnapped by UFOs? Transcript">Template:Cite news</ref> cautioned that media coverage might, inadvertently, be influencing alleged victims' stories.<ref name="Newman & Baumeister" /><ref name="Gazette Telegraph February 1996" /> For example, The UFO Incident, a movie based on the Barney and Betty Hill case, aired on October 20, 1975, and exposed millions of viewers to the idea of alien abduction.<ref name="Bullard, Thomas E." /> Just one month later, O'Barski, Hopkins' neighbor and a New York City liquor store owner,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Village Voice)">Template:Cite news</ref> approached him about seeing a spacecraft that, allegedly, landed in New Jersey's North Hudson Park.<ref name="McLaughlin, Paul">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Conspiracy theories of government coverup of UFO sightings and visitations,<ref name="Schnabel, Jim"/><ref name="Bader, Chris D. (April 1995)"/> such as the ones depicted in Nighteyes and Witnessed fueled the imaginations of those who belonged to UFO groups at the time.<ref name="Geist, William E."/><ref name="Broad, William J."/> Some say the public's interest in UFOs may have faded after the Cold War had it not been for the media's depiction of and public sympathy for traumatized alien abductee television portrayals in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref name="McLaughlin, Paul" /><ref name="Laycock, Joseph">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Keay, Davidson"/>
Even Hopkins admitted that media attention had a way of "contaminating the pool" of subjects, but believed that he was able to cull the delusional stories from those he believed to be real.<ref name="Bunn, Austin"/> In his view, the repetition of certain experiences by abductees lent credibility to their stories,<ref name="Fox, Margalit" /> leading him to conclude that these accounts were not fantasy.<ref name="Eberhart, George M.">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Personal life and deathEdit
By 1973, Hopkins was married to art critic, art historian, and curator<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Open access</ref> April Kingsley,<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/> with whom he had a daughter, Grace Hopkins<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> Their marriage ended in divorce in 1991.<ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/>
In 1994, Hopkins met writer, filmmaker Carol Rainey,<ref name="Rainey, Carol"/> who became his third wife in 1996.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/><ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)"/> They shared a mutual fascination with alien abduction stories and, according to Rainey, the possibility that people on Earth may have been "seeded here by highly advanced beings or a Big Being from 'out there'." The two co-wrote a book Sight Unseen, Science, UFO Invisibility and Transgenic Beings, which was published in 2003. They were married for 10 years.<ref name="Rainey, Carol"/>
On August 21, 2011, Hopkins died from complications of cancer.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/> At the time of his death, he was in a relationship with journalist Leslie Kean.<ref name="Fox, Margalit"/><ref name="Hopkins, Budd (Art, Life and UFOs)" /><ref name="Intruders Foundation">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
BooksEdit
- Art, Life and UFOs: A Memoir (2009) Template:ISBN
- Sight Unseen: Science, UFO Invisibility, and Transgenic Beings (2003), with Carol Rainey Template:ISBN
- Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions (1996) Template:ISBN
- Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods (1987) Template:ISBN
- Sacred Spaces: The Book of Temples/The Book of Guardians/The Book of Altars (1983)
- Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions (1981) Template:ISBN
See alsoEdit
- David M. Jacobs
- Extraterrestrial life
- Extraterrestrials in fiction
- John E. Mack
- List of alleged extraterrestrial beings
- Grey alien
- Zeta Reticuli
- The Manhattan Alien Abduction
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- www.intrudersfoundation.org – Intruders Foundation: Budd Hopkins' official site (archived)