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From: Peregrine Mendoza <101653.2205@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 24 Nov 96 23:34:52 EST
Fwd Date: Wed, 08 Jan 1997 01:54:20 -0500
Subject: The Literary Genius of Mr Mantle


from Sharon and Tracey, Harlow, Essex


WITHOUT COMPREHENSION

review of
WITHOUT CONSENT
A Comprehensive Survey of Missing-Time
and Abduction Phenomena in the UK
Carl Nagaitis and Philip Mantle
Ringpull Press L16.99


I am glad I am not a fir tree. Not merely because I should never have known the
extraordinary pleasure of those bottles of '59 Richebourg that I helped
appreciate to the last potable drop on Elfride's 21st birthday that year in
Marienbad (or was it Chard?), but because one would always run the risk of being
chopped down and turned into a book like this.

There are those among us who suspect that the 'abduction phenomenon' is some
what tainted by hoaxing. But this book is a kind of hoax. In the sense, that is,
that it is not the 'comprehensive survey' of abductions and missing time its
subtitle proclaims, and to the extent that the authors sometimes try to present
as abductions experiences that would not normally be worth listening to on the
third day snowbound in a Connemara pub. Oh, and it's worse than that, by the
way. It is phenomenally badly written. And it even manages to publish at least
one photograph upside down and another (though I only suspect this) possibly
sideways as well.

The blurb would have you believe otherwise. Well, it would: it's meant to make
the innocent feel glad to see the back of their money. But a blurb's come-on is
as good a set of claims as any by which to judge such a book. 'Case histories
have been thoroughly researched,' we are assured, 'witnesses interviewed and
hypnotically regressed, and all the current theories to explain abduction
phenomena gathered together into one comprehensive volume. The result is an
extraordinary catalogue of the inexplicable, complete with photographs never
before published.'

PICTURE OF INNOCENCE

When you have seen as many UFO photographs and declined to publish them as I
have, you take a gander at those first, in a new book. And, yes, here are some
we haven't seen before - mug shots of a few characters whose clones you could
see in any rush hour in Scunthorpe. I suppose these are meant to reassure us
that some of the characters whose stories are here are also real, and walk on
two legs; certainly one or two do have nice smiles. The pictures of UFOs include
that dreadful piece of post-Adamski hokum by Stephen Darbishire, discernible as
a fake from 200 yards (and a damned bad fake at that, which only an idiot would
take seriously - writs welcome) and that has been doing the rounds for 40 years.
But when, by the way, did this lame schoolboy prank ever have anything to do
with an abduction claim?

There is the Jeff Greenhaw 'tinfoil man' (doing the rounds for only half the
time). Greenhaw of course never claimed to have been abducted, and the authors
call him 'Greenshaw' twice in one short caption. The 1979 Motunau picture from
New Zealand is likewise treated to a misspelling, is undated, and is the one
that's printed upside down. No details of the case are given, but I can reveal
that there wasn't an abduction involved. This was one of those odd one-off
shots, when the witnesses saw nothing in the sky at the time. Given the
startling likeness of the 'UFO' to a lens flare, you can safely believe them. If
you want a really cheap thrill you can peruse a photograph of George and Amanda
Phillips' BUFORA sighting account form. They weren't abducted either, though.

The only pictures of interest are an original and four computer-enhanced
derivatives taken in Voronezh, Russia, in 1989, but there is no indication of
what the digitized images might tell us (even though they come from the usually
voluble Ground Saucer Watch) about the reality or other wise of the UFO
depicted. To me, the original looks as phoney as hell, even without a computer
scan. Yes, the captions are a trifle uninformative.

Then you try to read the text. You have to put up with this sort of thing:

'Since 1947 when flying saucer entered the English language, a staggering FORTY
MILLION UFO sightings have been logged. More than thirty UFO crash landings have
been reported and abduction reports run into an astonishing TENS OF THOUSANDS.'

The questions begged by this kind of junk are hardly worth repeating, and (I'm
not making this up) it sinks to an even lower level within five lines:

'In fact one observer calculated that some statistics suggest [did you get
that?] that as many as ONE IN TEN Americans have had some sort of encounter with
a UFO and a significant minority of those claim abduction experiences.'

If you can unclog the meaning from the stewed knitting of the prose, you suspect
that our authors are talking about the infamous Roper Poll of 1991. That is
worth taking on.

ASTRONOMICAL NUMBERS?

If they are referring to the Roper Poll, they are wrong. That found that 6 per
cent of adults in the continental USA had seen a UFO once, and that 1 per cent
(a statistically negligible figure, given the sample) had seen one twice. If you
believe that answering Yes to five particular questions asked by the pollsters
really does indicate the possibility of an abduction, the sample of 5947
produced fully 18 people (0.03 per cent) who may have been abducted and not
known it. Which is a pity, because that kind of figure is also statistically
useless in a survey with a margin of error of ? 1.4 per cent.

Those who commissioned the survey conveniently decided that a 'Yes' answer to
only four of these questions indicated an abduction, and then were rather
embarrassed to discover that 2 per cent of the sample, or 3.7 million Americans,
had by their criteria possibly been abducted. I am not alone among persons
experienced in analysing this kind of research in thinking that their criteria
are in any case hopelessly inadequate, and that the research was incompetently
designed for its purpose. The conclusions suffer from a fundamental flaw in
logic that render them meaningless as an 'abductee indicator', although item by
item the poll reveals some interesting data.

Nagaitis and Mantle don't tell you any of these things. Is that because they
didn't put the Roper findings to a research expert, or didn't know how to
analyse the figures themselves - or is it because it didn't suit them to
question the poll? Since they exaggerate the figures wildly, one wonders if
they've actually read the data.

The trouble with writing in a tabloid dialect is that it corrupts your thinking.
How else can one explain the sentence that starts 'Twenty three year old Rohan
Hinton was just seventeen when...' or this sample of the book's endemic
near-English:

'Yet abductions, if true, are far more serious than lights in the sky. Many of
these people are damaged psychologically if not physically. And it remains to be
seen whether the reasons behind these events are sinister or otherwise.'

What? This almost matches my all-time favourite piece of ufologists'
language-mangling, whose author my two regular readers will recognize at once:
'Policemen and others in a 24-hour situation...'

A style like this is intrinsically trivializing and therefore dangerous, because
its emotional and intellectual vocabulary is so pitifully circumscribed - not to
say stunted. Claims of abductions by aliens are so outlandish and unlikely that
they deserve scrupulous, thoughtful consideration. And that depends on
articulacy as well as knowledge and wherewithal. There is a sobering reality in
the dictum that you do not know what you mean unless (not until!) you can say
what you mean. Real thought is impossible in the language spoken by this book
and, worse, this is a language that presumes - and ultimately depends on - an
incapacity for conscientious thought in the reader. By the end one feels faintly
sullied, moderately insulted, and distinctly exhausted. One is also intrigued to
find a lot of blank pages where an index ought to have been.

THEORY AND PRACTICE

The claim that here 'all the current theories to explain abduction phenomena'
are 'gathered together' is, not to put too fine a point on it, c[lapt]rap. There
is a decent summary of Ed Bullard's now rather geriatric assessment of
abductions-as-folklore, but no attempt to get to grips with his assumptions
about folklore (which plenty of folklorists would question), the reliability of
his data, or the nature of his conclusions. They show themselves very up-to-date
by quoting Albert Budden at length, but then demonstrate their ignorance of the
latest work by Michael Persinger or the esteemed Paul Devereux by squeak ing:
'Even if [Budden's] theories prove correct... why do so many people see such
similar things?' And you will look in vain for any mention of 'earthlights' in
the book, or for a summary, let alone a reasoned critique, of Devereux's more
elaborate speculations on abductions. That is really not good enough.

Nor is there any account of the insights provided over many years by what I'd
say is the most persuasive and articulate group of ufologists anywhere, the
contributors to the British magazine (this in a book about the UK!) Magonia,
notably John Rimmer, Martin Kottmeyer and Peter Rogerson. Rimmer's intimations
of the parallels between certain kinds of religious experience and abduction
lore, and Rogerson's musings on the imagery and symbolism of the abduction
scenario, are provocative and wise. But then they're not amenable to being
regurgitated in the pre-chewed idiom that our authors have adopted.

The point can be demonstrated. The nearest Nagaitis and Mantle can bring them
selves to considering the psychosocial aspects of ufology is to dismiss the
'fantasy-prone personality' hypothesis with: 'Well, like most psychological
explanations for abduction phenomenon [sic], you can read into it what you
will.' If you wanted to see intellectual dishonesty on parade with drums
beating, banners flying, and a weasel for a mascot, it would be hard to improve
on that sentence. And I say that as one who is not convinced by the hypothesis
in question.

And then there are the 'thoroughly researched' case accounts. Some of these
really do make the heart bleed for the fir trees, as our intrepid chroniclers
seem to be incapable of picking apart the daftest statements made by 'witnesses'
even before a UFO has peeped over the horizon.

HIS FINEST HOUR

Take poor old Albert Lancashire, who was supposedly guarding a radar station at
Newbiggin-on-Sea, Northumberland, in September 1942. According to him, or our
gullible authors, he performed this duty with loaded rifle and bayonet fixed so
that he could fend off an attack by the Luftwaffe (honestly, that's what it says
here), but standing orders were not to fire at enemy aircraft 'or you will only
give away the position of the base.' Apart from the cracked logic, the idea that
Fritz in the sky above would even notice a few rounds from a .303 SMLE gives
rare pleasure. This flawless reasoning is stoutly maintained:'Firing at night
would be worse, he thought. Gerry pilots would soon spot them and that would be
the end of the installation.' Oh, and - drat! - you'd doubtless miss the buggers
too, sashay ing by in the dark like that as they did at 250mph.

It doesn't seem to occur to Nagaitis and Mantle that this collation of doziness
might cast a few doubts on the rest of Lancashire's tale. As it is, his
'evidence' for an abduction amounts to a few memories of dreams following a UFO
sighting. If you discount his devouring 'every piece of UFO literature he could
get hold of' in the years between his experience and his interview by
ufologists, that is. Pity, really, about the 'thorough' research in this book.
Did the authors even bother to find out if there actually was a radar station at
Newbiggin in 1942?

Other cases - most others - in the book are retailed with a similar, habitual
failure to consider the 'evidence' with any rigour - in Lancashire's case the
authors don't even get to face value. In another case, which they call a
'classic', they take the 'total bag of nerves' the witness becomes every time
his abduction is mentioned as a sure sign of his sincerity. This happens years
after the alleged event, when the witness has put his experience firmly behind
him - 'so firmly that he refuses to discuss the inci dent under any
circumstances' (except he does, or else how do they know he turns into said
bag?). I wonder why he gets so twitchy? It never crosses their minds that he
might be embarrassed and afraid of being caught out telling an almighty great
porky for the 99th time.

Whether or not there is an abduction phenomenon, most of the evidence for it
presented here is worthless. Basic information like key times and places within
the accounts is often missing. Non-sequiturs, another product of the tabloid
mentality that infests this book, abound. A UFO that blots out stars in one
paragraph is glowing in the next. There are vacuous rhetorical questions like:
'Why would a Royal Navy commander concoct such a story?' Why not? is the answer.
Navy officers must need a giggle pretty badly on occasion. It all gets a bit
dubious, though, as at one point they refer to him as a major. Perhaps in real
life he was neither. Did the authors check?

There is a constant insistence on the credibility of 'witnesses' and their lack
of motive for hoaxing: the anxious ufologist's raddled old mantra. No question,
some of these good folk are as sincere as larksong. The naive prose makes it
easy enough to tell when eager investigators have steered their victims in the
desired direction. Other 'witnesses' have created their own cocoon of belief.
But there is no evidence anywhere in these pages that the investigators have
made any determined effort to check the characters and backgrounds of the
claimants, or (when 'witnesses' are not being contaminated by the investigators
themselves) have even thought about possible impulses for lying, self-delusion,
attention-seeking, and so on and on. The results read less like an
'extraordinary catalogue of the inexplicable' than a tidal wave of gullibility.
Gestures toward common sense like 'Is she an over-enthusiastic sky-watcher with
a well-developed imagination?' become rhetorical weasels, emptied of any force
by the implacably agitated tone of the writing and the swift refusal to answer
such potentially revealing questions.

YOU FEEL VERY SLEEPY

You do, however, get an occasional gem. There is an hilarious insight into the
utter uselessness of material derived from hypnotic regression:

Investigator: Where are they from?

Witness: Distant galaxy.

Investigator: Where do they live?

Witness: Zircon, something like that.

Investigator: Will they show themselves?

Witness: They say they want to be like a friend....

Investigator: Are you important to them?

Witness: Yes, yes, yes. Oh yes.

Investigator: Because you are a woman?

Witness: It helps.

Investigator: Why?

Witness: We can communicate better.

Of course hypnotists don't ask leading questions. Just look at the evidence. No
way are abduction 'claimants turned on by the notion of being plucked from the
teeming mass for special attention by aliens. Why, all they get is ridicule -
except, that is, from famous persons like award-winning artist and best-selling
author Budd Hopkins, or Herr Professor Doktor David Jacobs, and persons unknown
with letters after their name that spell something like BUFORA - but even the
BUFORA boys and girls will do, they publish magazines, and they do keep coming
round with more questions, and their friends come too after a while.

A bit later the witness quoted here started relaying messages from Zeus, just to
liven things up. Our authors show no self-consciousness at their inability to
fall about with squeals of girlish laughter at this waggish drivel. Instead they
solemnly inform us that she said she hadn't read Erich von Danishbaken, as if
they really and truly believe that that old lag were the sole source of
information about a god called Zeus. 'The quality of the witness', they intone,
po-faced as a pig in a charcuterie, makes the case 'worthy of serious
consideration'. Truly, one does know the face of despair on occasion.

SAVE TREES

All this is very sad, and not only for conifers. There is both a gap in the
market and a gap in the literature (more to the point) that deserves to be
filled with a book that details missing-time and abduction experiences in the
UK, puts them in a global context, and explores the consequences. It might do no
more than summarize the state of the evidence and survey the current hypotheses:
Jenny Randles used to do this kind of thing almost bearably before she began
churning out terminally fence-sitting pop sicles such as her recent title on
crash retrievals, and Janet and Colin Bord (in "Life Beyond Planet Earth?" for
instance) do it brilliantly. Better, it would try to get to grips with the
'evidence' and the speculations, throw the nonsense out along with the ETH and
the dimension-hopping baggage, and try to drag some sense out of what remained.

For surely there is a sense there, just as there is in dreams of waltzing
giraffes and in the domestic habits of serial killers. There are real questions
to be asked and answered about the roles of folklore, of dreaming, of neural
pathways, of altered states of consciousness, of electromagnetism, of self-image
and of social conditions and of a dozen other factors in genuine (by which I
mean hoax- and hypnosis-free) abduction experiences. There are as many more
about what triggers those experiences and makes them so consistent from one
person to another and, in some cases, produces apparent physical effects in the
victims. The literalist abduction gang, the Hopkinses and Jacobses and Macks and
now the Nagaitis-Mantle axis, seem to be incapable of hearing questions like
these, let alone conceiving or addressing them.

Given what they adduce as evidence for their case, however, that should hardly
come as a great surprise. What does come as something of a revelation is the
poverty of the material in Britain. Nagaitis and Mantle provide details of 25
claimed cases. Of these, perhaps half a dozen could be considered genuinely
strange, if one assumes that the victims are telling the truth and that their
recall has not been contaminated by persuasive investigators and incompetent
hypnotists. So much for those vaunted TENS OF THOUSANDS of abduction reports.

While the true scale of the 'unexplained' portion of abduction reports may be
revealed here, it isn't the important point. The next step ought to have been to
see what these witnesses and their accounts have in common. And after that, to
see what links there may be with the Albert Lancashires and Rohan Hintons and
David Thomases - the ones, in short, that you can't trust, but whose beliefs and
circumstances may illuminate all sorts of aspects of the cases you've some
respect for. And then you can get stuck into the theories, the hypotheses, and
the speculations.

I have a sinking feeling that such a book will never be written. Who has the
time and the resources to spend on a project like that? What publisher would
front the kind of money you'd need to research and write a book that was almost
guaranteed not to titillate? No matter. Nagaitis and Mantle could have done the
subject some justice in the space they had, and they've blown it,
comprehensively. Their book adds nothing to the sum of human knowledge; and it
certainly isn't fair to trees.

PS: Could someone please remind me which comic strip/TV series/sci-fi book/movie
features a place called Zircon? It's not in Donald Menzel's Field Guide to Stars
and Planets - but then he was such a *terrible* skeptic about UFOs.

an edited version of this review appeared in "The Ley Hunter"


Mix to:
A LITTLE LATER...
It is a matter of record that shortly after issuing Mr Mantle's effusions,
Ringpull Press, the British publisher, went comprehensively and irretrievably
bust. One wonders if this is a mysterious coincidence of profoundly Fortean
interest, or a more complex issue of cause and effect.