This book review, written by Dr. Willy Smith and Copyrighted
(C) UNICAT Project, July 1, 1992 is posted by express permission
of Dr. Smith.

The opinions expressed herein are those of Dr. Smith and do not
necessarily reflect those of CUFON, Dale Goudie or Jim Klotz. ---------------------------------------------------------------

BOOK REVIEW

SECRET LIFE
By David M. Jacobs, Ph.D.
Simon and Schuster, NY, 1992
336 pages

---------------------------------------------------------------

I eagerly anticipated the publication of SECRET LIFE, hoping
for a scientifically oriented work which would depart from
the anecdotal vein used by pioneer researcher Budd Hopkins,
but I was bitterly disappointed.

Dr. Jacobs' book assumes the ETH (extraterrestrial
hypothesis) to be correct, and supports the ideas proposed by
other researchers that our visitors have a very well defined
program which includes genetic experiments aimed at creating
a hybrid species, in spite of the fact that some scientists
in the biological disciplines have expounded on the
impossibility of such an endeavor.

Although Dr. Jacobs has done a labor of love in gathering the
recollections of numerous alleged abduction victims, he does
not offer any convincing evidence that we are not dealing
with subjective events. As in all books on abductions, the
emphasis is on the narratives obtained from the victims under
hypnosis. The author recognizes the absence of hard evidence
and describes attempts to obtain it, as for instance, using
video cameras- The details reported for such attempts
strongly suggest that the subjects themselves could have been
instrumental in the resulting failures.

The main point in support of the objective reality of
abductions is that the narratives provided by witnesses
unknown to each other include "exact and minute details
previously known only to a few UFO researchers". The obvious
interpretation is that the abductees are describing the same
objective reality, a series of independent episodes
comprising a large-scale genetic program. It is quite
possible, but not indisputable, that this could be the case.

However, there is another common element underlying the whole
research; the investigator himself. He did not seek the
witnesses, rather the witnesses sought him or were referred
to him by other abduction enthusiasts, such as his friend
Budd Hopkins. I am not insinuating that the investigator
influenced his witnesses, but the possibility can't be
ignored, as the one-on-one contacts extended over lengthy
periods of time. For instance, "Melissa Bucknell" had 31
hypnotic sessions, and since each session lasted between 3
and 5 hours, a conservative estimate of the contact time
yields 90 hours, more than sufficient for two persons to know
and influence each other, even if unconsciously. To this, we
must add the intercourse necessary to set up a TV camera (p.
259), and the numerous telephone contacts.

As we are told, the research involved 39 witnesses claiming
to have had two or more abductions, and 22 having had only
one, 61 in total. Of those, 9 are primary witnesses, in the
sense that the transcripts of their hypnotic sessions
representing 354 or more contact hours with the investigator
are extensively quoted in the book. In addition, we have 10
subjects quoted one or two times, and "Melissa Bucknell"
whose transcript appears only once, although the repeated
mentioning of her name throughout the text makes her also a
star witnesses.

In short, we don't have a large pool of subjects: the whole
research rests on the testimony of a limited number of
witnesses, all having prolonged contacts with the
investigator. The possibility of undetectedly and
unintentionally influencing a group of about 10 persons can't
be discarded, thus providing an alternative explanation for
the similarity of the narratives, which certainly are not
identical. This could only be resolved if independent parties
could study the original tapes.

A tenet of scientific inquiry is the replication of results.
In the field of UFO abductions this is impossible, not only
because the original protocols are not available --as deemed
necessary for the protection of the witnesses-- but also
because the secrecy about their identities goes beyond
reasonable bounds. As a result, we know only the ages and
present occupations of the 39 witnesses having had two or
more abductions. As individuals, they remain in a limbo, and
any attempt to assess and evaluate their stories fails for
lack of information. We know next to nothing about their
education, mental and specially physical health, an essential
ingredient if we are going to understand why those particular
individuals were selected for a breeding program. Neither do
we know anything about their daily lives, their families and
their adjustment to society, all crucial factors for drawing
conclusions about their credibility.

As a result, the characters in this book are ghost figures
performing on a darkened stage. They might be very real to the
researcher, but he has not managed to convey that sense of
reality to the readers. A couple of examples will suffice;
Patti, age 23, returns to her bed after perhaps hours of
absence (p. 211), and elicits no curiosity from husband Roe
who in the interim has moved onto her side of the bed, a
rather incredible situation. Or we have Will Parker reporting
two abductions many years apart, accompanied on each occasion
by his wife at the time. One expects to find the
corroborative affidavits of at least his present wife, Nancy,
but she is no more than a name. These are disturbing
omissions, subtracting luster from the work, as the reader is
left wondering why those women did not come forward to
confirm the events.

A shortcoming of the book, as in previous works on the
subject, is the glaring omission of numbers. We are told how
many hypnotic sessions were necessary to extract the
information from each individual, but we can only estimate
how many contact hours between investigator and subject were
required to that end. More importantly, we are told only that
the subjects listed (by assumed names) had multiple
abductions, but the particulars, i.e., how many abductions
each one reported, are omitted. And this includes the star
Melissa, who claimed a daily abduction during some period of
time (p. 258), a most extraordinary statement deserving more
than one line of text! This is a serious flaw from a
scientific viewpoint, as in the absence of independent
supporting evidence a correlation linking for each subject
the number of abductions and the actual elapsed time
(apparently not available) to the contact hours with the
researcher and the amount of information obtained, could have
led to a realistic estimate of the quality of the
information.

A refreshing novelty is the "Abduction Scenario Matrix" (p.
330) which systematizes the different characteristic events
reported by the abductees. Unfortunately, the essential
ingredients to validate it are lacking. Presumably, and we
are even told so, the described procedures are well defined
parameters of the abduction phenomenon, repeating from one
incident to the next. But for each of those characteristics
the frequency of its appearance in the sample is missing. For
instance, how many times is sexual arousal (in the
Mental-Primary box) reported? Or, how many of the witnesses
have claimed implants (Physical-Primary box)?

The significance --if not the credibility-- of those events
would be completely different if the percentage of incidence
turned out to be 80%, or merely 5%. Those numbers can't be
obtained from the text because the narratives of a few
individuals (the primary witnesses) strongly predominate.
Thus, the repetitive character of the incidents is not firmly
established. And, as a matter of fact, the total number of
subjects is not even clear, although one could assume there
are 61.

Curiously, the abductees say little, if anything, about the
presence of an actual craft prior to the main event, and
although the narratives are rich in details about the
internal arrangements of the UFO, practically no information
about its external characteristics and behavior are
provided.

This has two immediate consequences:

(1) we have no compelling evidence that the UFOS
involved in abductions are identifiable with those described
in the literature, whose characteristics are well-known.

(2i The size of those crafts must be considerable, to
accommodate the facilities described by the abductees, which
include nurseries, very large rooms containing tables for 50
to 100 babies. and display tubes for 60 to 70 fetuses.
Diameters of hundreds of feet are quoted (p. 82).

Such large crafts would increase many fold their chances of
detection, while in fact the number of credible reports have
decreased with the years, and even in the heyday of UFO wave!
the sighting of very large crafts were few and far apart,
Moreover, today radar coverage makes it almost impossible@e for
vehicles from outer space to approach undetected to land and
take off from practically anywhere. How could this be?

This particularity, as well as two other details mentioned by
Dr. Jacobs, suggest the possibility of a hypothesis that has
been around for quite a while, but has been systematically
ignored by the proponents of the ETH and others, namely, the
Parallel Universe Hypothesis, which postulates that the
origin of UFOs is another three-dimensional universe parallel
to ours in a superior dimension. The transfer would require a
"window", a threshold, which the operators could place at
will anywhere (and hence witnesses are not safe even in
Ireland!) and the actual passage would entail a period of
disorientation and confusion, which is indeed reported by Dr.
Jacobs' abductees. The victims will not really pass through
closed windows, as reported, but will be transferred through
a singularity between those universes located adjacent to the
actual window. True, the witnesses describe being taken into
the air, but also indicate a vertical motion and no sense of
weather (p. 54) while this is occurring, both meaningful
details. I suspect that this significant inference has
totally escaped the attention of the author of this study.

If anything, this book has brought into focus the
difficulties with abduction claims, and the absolute lack of
supporting independent evidence. As such it is a valuable
contribution.

Dr. Willy Smith
(C) UNICAT Project
July 1, 1992

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