Gannet News Service
Dec. 11, 1993
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ABDUCTED BY ALIENS?

Two Women Say They Were

Catlett, Va.

Clare Holcomb and Diana Graves say the aliens grab them without
warning, usually at dusk or out of deep sleep.

Sometimes a spaceship -- the saucer-shaped vessel of B movies --
touches down silently in a corner paddock of this Virginia horse
farm 50 miles west of Washington, D.C.

Sometimes, "the beings" materialize out of thin air.

The "experiences" that follow are always terrifying to them, even
though they've happened hundreds of times. Holcomb and Graves
report pokes and prods by aliens deaf to their cries and pleas,
skin excisions and forced feedings that leave the women feeling
wretched for days.

"Every day or two you deny the whole thing, 'It's all going to
stop because I don't believe it anymore,'" says Holcomb, explaining
how she copes with her belief that space aliens regularly abduct her
and her best friend. "It's a self-defense mechanism. It protects
your sanity."

Holcomb and Graves sometimes question their sanity.

But people who report abductions or UFO sightings are not
necessarily psychotic, fantasy-prone or more imaginative than anyone
else, says research reported in the November issue of the Journal of
Abnormal Psychology.

Dr. Nicholas P. Spanos, professor of psychology at Carleton
University in Ottawa, compared the intelligence, imagination and
hypnotic suggestibility of abductees and UFO sighters with the
general population. The only difference he found was that UFO
sighters believed that extraterrestrial life existed before they
experienced aliens up-close and personal.

The researcher's findings are old news and cold comfort to
Holcomb and Graves.

"I'd be happy with (being) crazy," says Holcomb, a tall, thin
woman with a wedge of curly blonde hair. "You can see a
professional. There's medication to help you. I can't call 911
when I'm abducted."

Whether you believe in extraterrestrial life, Clare Holcomb, 47,
and Diana Graves, 44, are very real. And so are at least 1,000
other people in the United Satates who claim to have been contacted
by space aliens.

These people -- 250 more each year -- live in constant states of
anxiety and depression, afraid they're crazy, afraid they're not.

Catlett, Va., seems a cliche setting for a close encounter.

This 2,000-population town is dotted with corn farms and apple
orchards. Country roads lined with old oaks and hickories wend
through acres of hard clay and winter wheat.

Holcomb says her first abduction took place on such a deserted
road six miles from the Moonraker Equestrian Academy, the farm where
she lives and teaches horseback riding.

On Dec. 15, 1991, at 7:30 p.m., Holcomb was returning from nearby
Winchester, Va., when a pair of low-flying bright lights demanded
her attention.

What seemed like a moment later, Holcomb was driving five miles
further down the road and feeling nauseated. She arrived home more
than an hour later than usual, her ear lobes were inflamed and
bleeding, and her pierced earrings had been inserted backwards.

"I assumed I had had a nervous breakdown," she says.

The memory, which Holcomb retrieved about a year ago, sparked
flashbacks of regular abductions -- sometimes weekly -- dating back
to childhood.

The flashbacks, which Holcomb illustrates in ink drawings, feature
short, pale beings with hollow eyes and long fingers without
joints. Many scenes are set in high-tech modules. And many
memories feature Graves.

Even though the women grew up far apart -- Holcomb in Virginia,
Graves in England and Rhode Island -- they believe they were
abducted together as children and are certain they were fated by
alien forces to meet again as adults.

Eight years ago, Graves, who owns Moonraker, placed a newspaper ad
for a farmhand, Holcomb answered.

"We could never have met under normal circumstances," says
Holcomb, who is divorced and has a grown son. "We have countless
memories of childhood instances in `their' presence."

Six months after Holcomb began remembering her abductions, Graves
began having flashbacks, too. These days, the women say they are
frequently abducted together.

"They've threatened that someday they'll take us and we're not
coming back," says Graves, a policy analyst for the U.S. Forest
Service.

Until now, neither woman has spoken publicly about the abductions:
They fear ridicule from disbelievers and retribution from the
aliens.

But both feel now is the time to talk, though they can't
articulate why.

How do these women live fearing they"ll be snatched at any moment?

Both have sought professional help.

A year ago, Holcomb consulted David Ruxer, a Fairfax, Va.,
clinical psychologist who has treated a dozen UFO abductees.

Ruxer says abductees often display anxiety, depression and
flashbacks, symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress.

"It's not really a post-traumatic stress because it is an on-going
stress," he says. "The difference is this person is telling you it
happened last night, it's going to happen tomorrow. You struggle
for another model."

Ruxer says abductees come to him for hypnosis to recover
suppressed memories, or for a safe place to talk about their
experience.

Al,
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