The E.T. Hypothesis

 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-      The following is a transcript of the 12/29/87 rebroadcast o

f an episode from    the long running television series called "Man Alive".  The episode is entitled"The E.T. Hypothesis", and originally ai

red in April 1987.  That particular programreceived the highest audience rating of any episode in the 20-year history ofMan Alive.  The seri

es is hosted by Roy Bonisteel, and this particular show has to do with issues relating to the abduction experience in connection with UFO's.

       The program's format  involves location filming, which in this case includesa short interview and hypnosis session with a middle aged

 woman abductee, along with a roundtable discussion about the abduction phenomenom and its manyimplications. The participants include notabl

y Budd Hopkins, recognized UFOauthority along with other interested parties such as a Futurist and a doctor specializing in hypnosis for the

 treatment of trauma.      As Roy Bonisteel is the host of the program, he acts both as a narrator, and as a direct participant. Therefore, 

when he is acting in either capacity I shall indicate it by placing an (N) or (P) behind his name in order to clarify things.Other clarifyin

g points not expressed in the dialogue, will be indicated by myselfthrough the use of these type brackets  < >.     The half-hour program Ma

n Alive is broadcast coast-to-coast in Canada on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), which also produces it.          -The program was vi

deotaped and transcribed by ParaNet member Tom Mickus.+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+             

                               "THE E.T. HYPOTHESIS"Roy Bonisteel (N): Looking up at a star filled sky, how often do we wonder about        

                          other life in the universe? From what we know today it seems                                 virtually certain tha

t we're not alone. It follows that contact                             with an extraterrestrial civilization could happen, and at any       

                     moment. Most of us would agree that this would be a significant                            milestone in human history. 

But do we have any idea at all about                            how it will affect us?                                                      

                                                 Popular culture often reflects a naive, comfortable vision                            of ex

traterrestrials. They either look and sound like us <ala Mork                            & Mindy>,  or are pets <A.L.F.>.  Sometimes the ima

ge is                                            threatening, a nightmare of unearthly evil <War of the Worlds>,                            

    but the good guys always win in the end. In more self reflective                           moments we see extraterrestrials as saviours,

 crucified by our                           fears <The Day the Earth Stood Still>. But what would the reality                             be

 like? What could happen to our culture,  our religions, our                                    view of the world, our very sense of ourselv

es as a Race?                                  People have always looked to the skies and seen strange                                    th

ings, but it wasn't until 1947 that an idea captured the public                           imagination. That some of these strange objects ma

y in fact be                           somebody else's spacecraft. It's an idea that provoked a highly                           polarized d

ebate. But believers were often questionable types,                           they claimed to bring us messages of love from our space      

                     brothers. But the disbelievers were equally zealous in their                           pronouncements, and often just a

s hard to believe.                                   Though the evidence has accumulated, thousands of un-                           explain

ed sitings, pictures that have held up under analysis, it                           still is circumstantial.  The subject still provokes pas

sionate                          opinions, people who report UFO's are ridiculed in the Press.                          Scientists make unsc

ientific pronouncements. The beliefs about                              them, both pro and con, are sometimes expressed with a fervour      

                    that can only be described as fanatical. It seems that a lot more                          is at stake in the UFO contro

versy than just the evidence.David Jacobs: The UFO phenomenom is strange in the extreme, and even to go ahead                      and discu

ss some of the things that I will in fact discuss,                                        suggests....calls into question the quality of my 

judgements.Bonisteel (N): David Jacobs is a professor of history at Temple University in                       Philadelphia.Jacobs: ...acade

mics, and other scientists must be EXTREMELY careful because                      there  is a tremendous amount of ridicule attached to this

 subject.                 Starting in the 1970's, we began to receive large numbers of            abduction reports. The abduction reports a

re I think extremely important.            They are basically reports that people claim would have us believe that             they were... 

grabbed so to speak by occupants, they were given a physical           examination of some sort, and then released. Now normally these kind 

of           cases in "the old days" were simply dismissed, put in the CP file, CrackPot.           These people would be labelled loonies, 

and there are loonies out there,                   there are people who lie out there, everybody is  aware of that, and this           is pr

obably just another manifestation of that. However, there are so many           of them now, and they are so consistent, and the witnesses a

re so credible           that UFO researchers are forced to confront them. They are forced to deal           with them. Once we have begun t

o study abduction reports, it is almost as               if a door opened. <Scene Changes>Budd Hopkins:  I have worked with 124 people to da

te who I feel have either had...                       definitely seem to have had this kind of abduction experience, the                   

    experience which most interests me. Of those people, 66 have                        remembered a full account.Bonisteel(N): Budd Hopkins

 is a New York artist who has been researching UFO's                            since  a daylight sighting he had had in the '60's. He's wel

l known                     in New York art circles, his work is collected by both the Whitney                            and  Guggenheim mu

seums. But Hopkins is also the leading researcher                     into the UFO abduction phenomenom.Hopkins: The people who have experie

nced these abductions include three people              who hold Phd degrees, I have housewives, farmers, two police officers, I            

  have two army officers, I have just about everyone you could imagine who              has been involved in abductions.Bonisteel(N): We fel

t that regardless of whether or not the abduction phenomenom                      is real, it could give us a fascinating window through whi

ch we                              could explore the idea of extraterrestrial contact. Four people from                     varied backgroun

ds came to my farm for two days to hear Budd                      Hopkins talk about his research.                          Professor Allan 

Tuff, a futurist at the Ontario Institute for                               Studies In Education (O.I.S.I.E), University of Toronto.        

                  Clarence Dickinson, astronomer and author.                          John Musgrave, educational consultant from Edmonton, w

ith an                     interest in folklore and UFO's.                           And Dr. Michael Kaufman, a general practicioner who use

s                                   hypnosis in his practice for treatment of trauma.Hopkins: I'm looking at all these cases and  obviously 

you have three alternatives              essentially.  The person is making it all up, is lying to you, its a hoax.              The second,

 and obviously much more rewarding area to look for is that              there is some sort of psychological explanation of some sort, of an

y sort.              The third alternative, is of course the only third alternative, is that they              are describing what really ha

ppened to them, as best as they remember it.Bonisteel(N): Its Hopkins contention that they are describing what really happened              

       to them. He began to show us some thought provoking slides.Hopkins: This mark on the ground is a photograph taken in Indianapolis, in

 a case              that is very central to a whole cluster of events that I'm working on              now. In the morning after this event

 happened, this is what turned up on              the ground <large circular patch of scorched earth>. The soil is               absolutely 

cooked, its almost like rock. It will not hold water, water runs              straight through it, and this is the entire area.             

     Now this is the leg of that woman foreground <slides show small pock              marks>, we'll call her name Cathy. Those little scars

, those little scoop-              marks are associated with two events that happened to her. One, when                     she was about si

x, and one when she was about thirteen. And under               hypnosis she has remembered a UFO experience where a small tool took a      

         little core sample. This is her mother's leg <similar marks on the slide>.               Her mother had a missing time experience w

hich was very distressing                    for her when she was a little girl, and at the end of it she had this little              mark.

                    This is another woman who was a close friend, who had an             abduction  experience, a missing time experience, a

nd she remembered             a great deal of it consciously. This is of course a very common type of              figure as we now know <sh

ows classic picture of alien, four feet tall, big               head and eyes....> from so many of these reports. This predates Close       

       Encounters incidentally <the movie>.Bonisteel(N): After lunch, Budd Hopkins began to present his latest findings                     

             publicly for the very first time. Up to this point, only a handful of                     people have been aware of the things 

that we now heard. Hopkins                      was understandably nervous.Hopkins: A new aspect of the whole phenomenon which I have stumbl

ed into              has to do with this idea of some genetic experimentation.  And we have              always known that there have been, 

suggestions at least, of ova being               taken form women and sperm from