Alienation and Aliens: A Comparative Study of Narratives of Abduction in Historical African and UFO Experiences

1.1 UFO abduction stories

In 1982, folklorist David Hufford asked a question fundamental to those who are studying the implications of extraordinary phenomenon: “Why is a particular believed narrative stable across time and space?” (Hufford 1982) My answer would be that believed narratives are formed around cultural and historical occurrences which relate extraordinary phenomena to pre-existent patterns of social relation. This question, which has poetic resonance with the nature of the subject being discussed, was a great stimulant to my undertaking this particular project, as I sought to discover the connection that UFO abduction stories had with other accounts of abduction, notably the most widely known stories of forced abduction, in terms of American culture, stories of African enslavement.

After considering the racial dynamics involved in several cases of alien abduction I have come to the following conclusions: For white Americans, who will incidentally be the main focus of this article, UFO abduction allows for an alleviation of cultural guilt by means of establishing a new power relation in which the abductee is forced to relieve an analogous situation of powerlessness and is thus released from the accumulated guilt implicit in larger society. I base my findings on a review of 40 different published accounts of alien abduction ranging from the 1950s to 2017, along with interviews with three individuals with abduction accounts. I am not saying that this is the only reason behind why someone may believe that they have been abducted by aliens, as that would certainly not be the case; however, I do think it counts for a significant portion of known abduction cases, and tend to follow some of the demographic patterns some scholars have already identified, for instance Tromley’s work. Though there is no claim to objectivity in this work, I would like it known that my conclusions about the nature of abduction claims have changed over time. Initially, my interest was in evaluating trauma narratives in UFO Abduction reports, with a focus on treatment of trauma. It has only been over the course of the last four years that I have become more and more compelled by this present thesis.

1.2 Methodology and Narrative Selection

Selecting the material to be included within this study was exceptionally difficult. The core of my experience with the phenomenon of alien abduction came from a series of interviews I made in 2014. All of the interviews that I conducted were with white Americans, 2 females and 1 male, aged between 18–34. All of my subjects were also from the same general region of the American South, living in Western Kentucky and in the Nashville metropolitan area, and knew one another from MUFON (Mutual UFO network). My interviews were conducted in person and over the telephone, and lasted roughly an hour each. The only exception being my interview with the male participant, where there were two additional interviews. The interviews were taken with my commitment to confidentiality, and I have taken exhaustive measures to maintain their privacy.

In addition to these interviews, I have examined nearly 40 additional accounts of UFO abduction both from works cited in this article as well popular printed anthologies of abduction notably David Jacobs’s Alien Encounters: Firsthand Accounts of Alien Abduction (1994) as well as Marden and Stoner’s The Alien Abduction Files: The Most Startling Accounts of Human-Alien Contact Ever Reported (2013).

Without a doubt the most problematic selection I have made for this paper was that of Räel, who being a Frenchman may be a little outside the scope of this work. However, Räel was deeply impacted by American science fiction and the stories of UFO abduction (Palmer 2004), and his case shows an extreme example of the empowerment that may occur in some accounts of abduction. Furthermore, Räel was likewise a product of a society reeling from its colonial past. French consciousness about its actions in Africa were quite prevalent during Räel’s youth, and the prospect of UFO intelligence has been continuously cited by Räel as a way for human beings to escape all forms of societal oppression, especially racism. Finally, given widespread knowledge of his account, I felt it necessary to address him.

Although I am aware this is far from being an exhaustive sample size, I do think it large enough to posit some general aspects of the abduction phenomenon. I should also state that the majority of accounts presented here approach the phenomenon from a mostly white perspective, and as scholars continue to investigate this phenomenon, the implication of the white nature of abduction accounts must be taken into account.

In selecting the stories of African enslavement, I leaned on scholars of the Atlantic Slave trade, and I placed a heavy emphasis on those narratives which had amassed a popular public response. For instance, some of the narratives I selected had been turned into popular films, and I am at present working on a project analyzing the depiction of abduction within the two genres. Whenever I could, I also chose narratives which had wide narrative distribution historically.

4.1 Capture

For the first of Bullard’s categories, the capture he offers the following: “Strange beings seize and take the witness aboard a UFO.” (Bullard 1989, 153) When one reflects on the imagery of abduction, there almost always seems to be a violent tearing from one reality into a subjugated, other state. There is the tortuous feeling of being spatially and ultimately altered. In the narrative of Selim Aga, in his 1846 work delivers for us a narrative episode that might be considered typical of the abduction story:

We wandered many miles from home, by which means we acquired an acquaintance with the different districts of the country. ‘Twas while in these rambles with my companions that I became the victim of the slaveholder. While tending our flock between two hills, we spied two men shaping their course towards us. They inquired whether we had any goats for them, a term quite common in that country. Our reply was, of course, in the negative; but they merely used this craft in order to deprive us of suspicion. Myself being nearest to them, I was firmly secured in their hands, and forced away whether I would or not. On showing symptoms of resistance, one of them procured a green twig, and whipped me till the blood was falling in drops from my legs. After proceeding some miles, we came to a house, where I was tied with ropes hand and foot, and laid down to rest. Next morning, before dawn of day, my cruel master took the ropes off my legs, and, setting me on a certain direction, desired me to walk while he followed with a large whip. Terrified out of my judgment, I saw that there was nothing to be done but either do or suffer. I of course chose the former. This was rather a harsh treatment for a child of eight years of age. Commencing before sunrise, we continued our journey till the middle of the day, when we arrived at a village. (Aga 1846,18)

From reading this selection it is intended that the reader recognize some of the common elements that frequently appear in abduction accounts. In the famous account of Olaudah Equiano we have a similar story. While the older members of his village were out going about their daily chores in the community, and as he and his sister were alone in their home, a woman and two men scaled the walls and put them in slavery:

Without giving us time to cry out, or to make any resistance, they stopped our mouths and ran off with us to the nearest woods. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till the night came on, where we reached a small house. (Equiano 1789, 24)

In both of these accounts, which were selected for their capability of being representative, we see a pattern: a conscious account of being abducted, being bound and muted, and being deposited within a temporary place. In addition to these elements, we have the feeling of daily life being interrupted without warning. To this Bullard writes:

Abductees are typical legend actors, hapless victims rather than heroes, who encounter the unknown while going about such mundane activities as driving on a lonely road, fishing after work, washing dishes, or lying in bed at home. No one is safe, no one chosen for any apparent reason other than availability. This vulnerability of the innocent to external powers expresses the ultimate message of abductions and also reflects the distinctive viewpoint of the legend. (Lithi 1976, 24, cited in Bullard 1989, 152)

Abductee claimants frequently have no direct memory of their abductions, but as with my participant Jennifer S., only the initial feeling of outstanding strangeness or guilt. This is often attended by time loss, as is the claim of the first account of alien abductions. The majority of abductee claimants produce abduction narratives in the context of hypnosis, with the abduction narrative forming after successive sessions. Following my hypothesis, the abduction narrative develops out of the creative drive to render tellable these strong emotional responses. The “othering” which develops in the hypnosis setting allows the claimant to find expression in available narratives, explicitly those tied to enslavement. Bullard does not address the “memory through hypnosis” issue in his 1989 article, and I have not found another case where he addresses the implications of dealing with narratives from “retrieved memories”.

In the case of Jennifer S., the actual “how” she was abducted does not seem to play a large role in the narrative that she provides. Her recollection follows the pattern I have described above. As she and three other friends were driving in a car in rural Kentucky, they noticed several lights in the sky, then she remembers being transported from that moment to another stretch of road with no memory of how they got there, and without being able to account for the time lapse. After the experience, they saw another UFO, to which she and her friend decided to “chase after it” on foot. This detail will become exceptionally important as we consider later UFO accounts. Although there were four people in the car, Jennifer and her friend Brittany were the only ones to actively pursue an explanation, which led them to contact MUFON. After getting in touch with MUFON the girls agreed to undergo hypnosis. It was during these sessions that the girls learned the extraordinary events that took place. Until that moment there was no discernible narrative of the abduction, only the sense of eeriness. In another interview with a 27-year-old male who I will call Y, after playing video games downstairs with friends, he remembers waking up in his bed with no memory of how he got there, and with a severe attack of what could be called existential guilt: “I just felt like I was the cause of everything wrong with the world, everything bad with it … and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t shake it.” Later as he was lying in bed and staring “blankly” at his ceiling he started to remember the feeling of floating in “something like a light-tube”.

The first case that brought the UFO abduction phenomenon to the attention of the American public was the case of Betty and Barney Hill, and it bears remarkable similarity to both the stories provided by Jennifer and Y, both of whom had never heard of this particular case. As Betty and Barney were driving along the hills of New Hampshire, they noticed something in the sky. Barney gets out his binoculars and begins to examine what could only be called a UFO. He saw the beings which were operating it, and feeling they wanted to interact with them, they attempted to speed away, recording “rhythmic ‘buzzing’ tones that seemed to bounce off the trunk of their vehicle” (Friedman 2007, 32). Then, as with Brittany, the Hills noticed a loss of time as they were expecting to be in another town, and they looked over to find it breaking day (Friedman 2007). David Drysdale considers the racialized culture components in the Hills’ narrative in his 2011 article, Alienated Histories, Alienated Futures: Raciology and Missing Time in the Interrupted Journey, and the implications of his findings have resonance with fieldwork I conducted.

For Drysdale, who analyzed the Hills account of their abduction in their 1966 book The Interrupted Journey, he concludes that the abduction story is an artifact of general anxiety regarding the future of racial relationships in the United States. “[T]he trauma of the alien abduction experience lies in the anxiety that this alien future is the endpoint for the incipient technologies of bodily imaging and genetics: not the transcendence of race but its deletion by the uncannily inhuman extraterrestrials.” (Drysdale 2011) Drysdale’s account underscores the social anxieties of Barney Hill, a black man in 1950s America about the future of race-relations, my fieldwork shows a desire to escape from the burden of racial relations by white Americans, who project both their guilt and frustration onto a new experiencing of othering that sets them apart from the common culpability of white America.

4.2 Examination

Following Bullard’s categorization, the second narrative element is the examination, where “these being subject the witness to a physical and mental examination” (Bullard 1989, 153). Of the several narratives that I was able to collect and in the story of the Hills this is a repeated and recurring element. Jennifer, recalls being confined in a room where there is “light coming from the floor,” and although there is no explicit description of the types of medical experiments, there are feeling tones of being violated which find resonance in the humiliation forced upon the subjects due to the examinations. Y reported the feeling of having something enter into his abdominal region and feeling its way through his insides, and this was the most graphic description available to me. Although there is no direct exchange of images between the stories of UFO abductees, there are some analogous examples which can be found in the narratives of the enslaved, especially the examination of enslaved persons by potential buyers. Equiano discusses the ways in which enslaved people were commoditized, and hints at some of the criteria for a good slave, this instance is primarily associated with the need for “a fresh supply of negroes” (Equiano 1789, 69–81). In the narrative of Selim Aga we find a reference to the market, which has some connections with the stories of physical examination endured by UFO abductees: “We were regularly taken and exhibited in the slave market, where purchasers came to pick and choose. The grown up ones soon went off, while the small livestock remained for a long time in the market.” (Aga 1846, 34)

4.3 Conference

Although, as previously mentioned, there is no direct exchange of images, I feel that there are enough similarities between the two narrative sequences to draw some comparisons between the two story clusters. Also, as with so many of the narratives that I experienced there is the feeling of “being violated,” that is present with both narrative groups, although in many cases the actual procedures are vague. I have also found this is the case with Bullard’s consideration of conference meaning “A conversation with the beings follows,” in the narratives which I worked with this conference was simply a part of the examination episode. In the narratives of Jennifer and Y, Jennifer reports a telepathic communication on the part of her friend with an extra-terrestrial, and Y does not remember any communication; in one of the only variations that X had from her partner’s narrative revolved around a telepathic feeling that what was going on which her during her medical exam “was not going to hurt me”. The feelings of being exposed, bound and muted, along with the transportation to an “other place,” are a commonality shared between the experience of enslaved Africans, and those claiming alien abduction. I do not mean that UFO abductees consciously sought to mirror the experiences of enslaved Africans; rather, it is a form of subconscious inversion, where the descendants of an oppressing group find emotional freedom in a new dynamic of repression.

4.4 Theophany

This desire to spread the message that was given to him by the alien creator, Bullard calls Theophany and he describes it as: “an encounter with a divine being” (Bullard 1989, 153). Although this is literalized in the case of Räel, I think a better way of making Bullard’s point is to say that there is the feeling of immense interconnectedness with other beings across space and time. In my interview with Jennifer, she recalls that her friend Brittany had an encounter with one of the alien life-forms which seem to say that the being was her real father. Also, in my interviews with Y and his female partner X, both individuals reported incredible feelings of connectedness with the entire universal race, Y even going so far as to suggest that there are many individuals on the earth who are products of inter-relationships between alien and human life forms. Indeed, this supposed interrelationship between human and alien forms has been the basis for much of the fiction written by Lovecraft, and conspiracy theorist David Icke. Icke in particular, has formed a congruent theoretical solution to most elements of the paranormal, insisting that the earth is home to a voyaging reptilian race, who have breed themselves with humans, and who have controlled the world through mind control (Icke 1999).

However, what is greatly translated through these experiences is a feeling of privilege, or of “chosenness”. Brittany’s story, as it was told through Jennifer, was that she felt a paternal connection with one of the alien beings, and felt as though he was supervising over her, ensuring her protection (Rose 2014). Although this feeling of connectedness with the beings whom are responsible for their captures might appear to be very unusual, both UFO abductee and enslaved African narratives do contain elements of identification with the abductors, although the pronounced nature of this varies to extreme degrees. While the idea of being literally, biologically, related to the abductor is not a factor in the stories of enslaved Africans, there is a sort of felix culpa that takes place on a religious dimension. For instance, in the work of Gronniosaw, we see that he perceived his abduction and enslavement as being the method through which he was introduced to Christianity:

Who can doubt but that the Suggestion so forcibly press’d upon the Mind of ALBERT (when a Boy) that there was a Being superior to the Sun, Moon, and Stars (the Objects of African Idolatry) came from the Father of Lights, and was, with Respect to him, the First-Fruit of the Display of Gospel-Glory? His long and perilous Journey to the Coast of Guinea, where he was sold for a Slave, and so brought into a Christian Land; shall we consider this as the alone Effect of a curious and inquisitive Disposition? Shall we in accounting for it refer to nothing higher than mere Chance and accidental Circumstances? Whatever Infidels and Deists may think; I trust the Christian Reader will easily discern an All-wise and Omnipotent Appointment and Direction in these Movements? (Gronniosaw 1846, iv)

Similar opinions can be echoed in both the writings of Equiano and in Aga, and have analogous connections with stories of White settlers being adopted and adopting the traditions and lifestyle of Native Americans (Turner-Strong 1999). Both the stories of UFO abductees and the stories of enslaved Africans, seem to use narratives of abductee and abductor connectedness in an attempt to sublimate the horror of the situation and find hope in identifying with the captor thus bridging the gap between the two and comment upon the nature and relationship of “the other.”

4.5 Tour

In 1992, at a conference on Alien abductions at MIT, Thomas E. Bullard classified the tour, as being one of the rarer elements in abduction narratives (Bullard 1994.) Bullard in 1989 described this element as being: “The beings show their captive around the ship.” As such, this element did not make a large contribution to my research. I found very little to compare with enslavement narratives, and the only major account comes from Räel, and this is his hosts showing him the technological advancements of their civilization (Räel 1974).

4.6 Other-worldly Journey

However, an element that Bullard identifies that play an exceptionally important role in both the narratives of enslaved Africans and in the narratives of UFO abductees has to be the presence of an other-worldly journey, which was described by Bullard as: “The ship flies the witness to some strange and unearthly place.” (Bullard 1989) Although there might be some degree of contention about the term “unearthly”, whether or not this must be taken absolutely terrestrial, I feel that for the majority of enslaved Africans their experiences are anything if not unearthly. The transitions between places features very prominently in the enslavement narratives that I have chosen, and I would argue that they are some of the most fundamental, and stable elements of both genres.

Gronniosaw’s narrative is particularly illustrative of this point, as the lure of the unknown and far away plays an element in both his going away into enslavement and becomes an element in his reflection of the “strange places.”

He (The man responsible for his enslavement) told me that if I would go with him, I should see houses with wings to them walk upon the water, and should also see the white folks … I was highly pleased with the account of this strange place, and was very desirous of going. (Gronniosaw 1846, 5)

Also, Aga’s narrative is filled with sensuous accounts of the spices, architecture and customs of the lands which he passed through. Aga looks at the world with a cautious appreciation, taking in what he can in these strange lands, all the while yearning for home: “Let those who cherish in their hearts/ The thoughts—‘Tho’ absent, ever dear,’/ Remember that although they part/ ‘Tho’ lost to sight, to memory dear.’” (Aga 1846, 35) Equiano, whose style is very much of the Eighteenth Century, offers some of the most ambitious hopes for his travel into the alien lands of his white captors thought that if he could return to his home country: “I was quite rejoiced at the idea of going back; and thought if I should get home what wonders I should have to tell.” (Equiano 1788, 39) With dramatic similarity we find similar reactions on the part of those who have experienced UFO abduction.

Informant Y, which was corroborated by his companion, recalls looking out of a window that was outside of the room in which they were suspended, and recalling: “It wasn’t earth.” When I asked if that brought about any feelings within them, both reported a sense of fear at the prospect that they would never again return to the life that they had known, combined with an exhilaration at the thought of being able to convey this to their friends and families if they were ever able to return (Rose 2014). Räel’s trip to the planet of the Elohim, which is one of the key doctrines within the Räelian religion contains many elements that resonate with Aga’s record of wonders:

I arose and followed my three guides. We went through an airlock and in a vast room I noticed a craft similar to the one that had brought me from earth, but it was much larger … We sat down as before, and again I felt the same sensation as cold, but it lasted much longer this time- about ten minutes. The craft rocked slightly and we stepped out through the trap-door exit. Before me a paradisiacal landscape unfolded and in fact, I cannot find any words to describe my enchantment at seeing huge flowers, each more beautiful than the last, and animals of unimaginable appearance were walking among them. There were birds with multicolored plumage, and pink and blue squirrels with the heads of bear cubs climbing in the branches of trees that bore enormous fruits and gigantic flowers. (Räel 1974,160)

Räel’s account, while being more detailed than many others, has much in common with the writings of enslaved Africans, whose narratives are filled with wonder and fascination at the lands that there were brought into; however, due to the conscious nature of his experience there are some major variations between Räel’s account and the accounts of most UFO abductees.

4.7 Return

Bullard’s identification of the return, meaning “At last the witness comes back to Earth, leaves the ship, and reenters normal life,” I found to be as equally nebulous as the capture element; it seems to be another example of a needed element that really did not function very prominently in the narratives that I considered. For Jennifer, X, and Y, they did not remember the process of being returned, but only found themselves missing time. Among the enslavement narratives that I used, only Equiano seems to have a distinct story to how he escaped from slavery, in the narratives of the other two, the ending portion of the narrative did not feature highly.

4.8 Aftermath

The final stable element that Bullard identifies is the aftermath, by which he means: “Physical, mental, and paranormal aftereffects continue in the wake of the abduction.” (Bullard 1989) In all five of the cases of UFO abduction that I have presented within this study, each one of them is set within the context of the deeply amorphous quality of the uncanny. For Brittany, Y and X, the Hills, and Räel, they did not leave their experience as the same person they were when they entered into it. In a moment, all that they held to be true about the universe was fundamentally altered, and it becomes a landmark event in how they form narratives about reality. All of the other elements that Bullard introduces, in this reading, have their presence in the stories of enslaved Africans, alien abductors become white, UFOs become slave ships etc., but the difference will always be in how they end. For the enslaved the experience of such human cruelty would have generational consequences, as communities to this very day battle with its effects. However, with the claims of alien abductees we find an elation that they were able to see so much more of the known universe, and that their chosenness set them apart from the broader experience of society at large. There is in Y’s story even a joyful acceptance of the humiliation that he would experience when he told others about his experiences: “I knew they were going to laugh at me. I knew they were going to call me crazy, but they didn’t go through it, I did.”

Though this paper has focused on the similarities by which accounts of UFO abduction follow the accounts of enslaved Africans, as one reviewer pointed out there are incredible differences which in no way should be ignored. For one, the issues of memory are important, very often persons who have claimed to experience UFO abduction have no memory of the event, and it is sometimes only with hypnosis that they are able to reconstruct their experience. Obviously, this is not the case with the enslaved, whose entire life from that point on would be shaped by the reality of their abduction. Secondly, it seems as though some abductee claimants sought the attention of the UFO, whereas this certainly would not have been the case with the enslaved. Then, there are the issue of purpose, slaves were taken for financial gain, whereas there seems to be no central motivation behind those claiming alien abduction. Finally, most persons claiming UFO abduction are released, whereas the enslaved had to work exceptionally hard to gain their freedom.

While all of the issues raised in these critiques are perfectly valid, they also validate the central thesis of this paper. It has been argued here that the sources for UFO abduction accounts have taken inspiration from the historical fact of African enslavement, but they are a derived experience, not an actuality. As has been argued here, the UFO abduction story is a way of escaping common culpability by identification, however, identification alone cannot reproduce the types of external and legal pressures that followed the experiences of the enslaved. Räel’s account, for instance, even shows that there is a financial incentive to positively orient abduction phenomena, and though his account is an outlier, it still provides insight.