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From: John Rimmer <magonia@magonia.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 16:00:59 +0100
Fwd Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 08:53:06 -0400
Subject: Re: First 'Grey' Report?


>From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com>
>Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 13:44:19 -0400
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>Subject: Re: First 'Grey' Report?


>>Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 22:45:47 +0100
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>From: John Rimmer <magonia@magonia.demon.co.uk>
>>Subject: Re: First 'Grey' Report?

Mark Cashman's reply is long and considered, and rather than
split it up by comments I have snipped it all, and urge people
to read the original text and follow up the links supplied.

It references a good selection of articles which examine
psychological and neurological conditions which have a great
deal of relevance to the UFO abduction phenomenon, and I would
challenge little of what he says. However none of the extra
information allows us to determine before hand whether an
abduction has a physical element. The majority of abductees are
pefectly convinced that _their_ abduction is physically real and
forms part of an unbroken continuum with the rest of their life
experience. Cashman's reading list show us many of the reasons
why this may not be so, but it does not demonstrate a readily
observed, qualitative difference between non-physical and
physical abduction experiences (always providing the latter do
in fact exist).

My objection to John Velez's approach was that it seemed to
assume, without adequate demonstration, that there was an easily
identified type of 'real' abduction that was the only type
worthy of serious investigation.

I am not as sanguine as Cashman about the existence of
independently witnessed abductions. There have, of course, been
multiple abductions, but it would be stretching the language to
describe the second person in these as an "independent" witness.
The Travis Walton case was cited, and although this is certainly
an interesting and very complex case. My colleague on Magonia,
John Harney has written about it at length (see the "ETH
Bulletin" and "Monthly Supplement" on the Magonia website)
challenging simplistic sceptical explanations such as Phil
Klass's. It is clear however that the actual abduction (whatever
it may have been) was not witnessed by Walton's workmates.

I simply comment that the abduction experience is incredibly
complex, and research is not helped by the arbitrary writing-off
of whole sections of it because of someone's a priori
assumptions as to what is or is not a real abduction.


--
John Rimmer
www.magonia.demon.co.uk
Abandon hope all ye who press Enter here