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Alleged Experiences Inside UFOs
Vicente Juan Ballester Olmos
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Abstract-Six well-documented UFO abductions reported in Spain are reviewed. Investigation reveals them to be the result of hoax, delusion or psychosis. On a global scale, the annual distribution of abductions plotted according to year of report shows clusters associated with media-related triggers. Abduction narratives seem to proceed from internal sources, representing non-physical experiences of psychological origin inspired by publicized material, plus a significant number of hoaxes. A danger exists that the abduction syndrome may get out of hand.

Introduction
A pragmatic definition for the abduction case has been proposed: it is one "in which a witness claims to have been taken forcibly on board a UFO and scrutinized closely or examined medically by alien creatures"
Qualitatively it is to be differentiated from the contactee case, a term which "originally referred to a small group of individuals who in the 1950s claimed direct contact with the space people that piloted the flying saucers. These contacts usually contained many psychic elements as well as a religious or an ethical message"

The existing empirical background for the abduction phenomenon is a large one, indeed. This new category of events -
or reports -has recently flooded the pages of specialized journals and its magnitude is counted in the hundreds (Bullard 1987). When the author was invited to present a paper at the June 198'7 MUFON International UFO Symposium held in Washington, D.C. (Ballester Olmos and Fernandez 1987b),
the perception that American ufologists were specially captivated by this type of events was more than obvious.
Following the symposium, the author felt compelled to undertake a personal study of this contemporary theme within the UFO problem. Were there similar reports in Spain? Were there discernible trends in the mass of foreign cases? Those were the two main questions we posed.

Methodology
Our methodology followed a three-fold scheme: (i) we reviewed the general archives of UFO landing experiences reported in Spain in order to isolate those cases containing abduction motifs (Brunvand 1983), if any, in an attempt to discern their nature; (ii) we reviewed the case material accumulated worldwide on this anomaly, studying its reporting and phenomenological features in a global manner to look for any discernible pattern in the data; and (iii)
we reviewed the published literature on the UFO abduction mystery in order to gain greater insight into the ongoing debate, to provide a stronger foundation for the discussion of the available case material.
This paper discusses our results. Spanish abductions have been reviewed, worldwide trends are examined, some reflections on this kind of experience are presented, and a few conclusions are proposed.


The Abduction Experience in Spain
To begin with, the author scanned the Spanish UFO literature and the files of close encounter reports, in order to separate the documented cases from the rumors and anecdotal cases unsupported by specific data, which were not taken into consideration. As a result Table 1 lists six abduction cases in Spain. For information purposes, a few "missing time" cases, regarded as potential abductions according to the stereotype, have been added, although no hypnosis was used in the investigation process and no kidnapping report ever emerged.
Two distinctive features are observed in the data. First, typical abduction re- ports did not appear in Spain until the end of the 1970s. Second, although researchers' files record some 3,500 UFO cases, including 230 screened close encounters (Ballester Olmos and Fernandez 1987a, 1987b) and several contactee cases, the abduction experience is extremely rare in Spain, with only six known episodes.
In contrast, there were notorious contactees in Spain in the 1950s and 1960s who attracted considerable press interest. However abductions in Spain have had little or moderate social impact. In fact the term "abduction" was not introduced to the media until 1979. Previously, foreign cases of this type had not reached the general public and were viewed by specialists as exotic exceptions to the UFO phenomenon.
Curiously, the emergence of abduction events in our country runs parallel to the transient publicity given to local and foreign abductions in the Spanish media.
Table 1
shows that the first two cases ever reported arose in 1978. They were very similar to each other in content and both reports referred to a recent occurrence. They were published in the daily press, in popular magazines, and received national TV coverage.
It is noteworthy that the same year of 1978 saw the release of Spielberg's famous movie Close Encounters of
the Third Kind and the previous year Star Wars had been in all the Spanish theaters. In 1978 and 1979 national programs on Spanish radio and TV dealt with the abduction phenomenon. The Blue Book Project TV series was aired during 1979. This means that strong influences exploiting the theme of extraterrestrial contact, UFOs and abductions were combining at the time. They created a climate conducive to contamination and to the shaping of beliefs and ideas. It is hardly surprising that two fur- ther abduction cases were reported, although they had allegedly occurred several years before. These were followed by a 1982 report of an event dating back to 1946, and finally by a case in which both the abduction and the report were recent.


Case Abstracts and Interpretation
Summaries of histories, diagnosis of events and main information sources relevant to cases follow. Reports are included in the chronological sequence of their disclosure to the press or to the ufological community.
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Case No. 1.
Tendilla (Guadalajara), December 18, 1977.
Miguel Herrero Sierra, a 34-year-old man, was going fishing before sunrise when the car lights failed. He stopped the vehicle. Nearby there was a landed object some 18 meters long. Two normal-looking beings took him into the craft. He was inside the UFO for about three hours, yet he had only 15 minutes recollection of the incident. Light hypnosis corroborated details given in the waking state.

Explanation: Hoax. The subject is a notoriety-seeking individual who is prone to fabrication. (Sources: Mundo Desconocido, No 21 March 1978. Stendek No.38, December 1979. J. Parra).
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Case No.2.
Medinaceli (Soria),
February 5, 1978.
Julio Fernandez, aged 31, was going hunting with his dog when he received a "mental order" to deviate from his route and to drive towards Medinaceli, in the vicinity of which his car stopped without explanation, just before sunrise. Then he and the dog were taken into a strange circular object, 50 meters in diameter, by two tall beings with prominent heads and elongated chins. Under hypnosis he recalled that he and his dog suffered unpleasant medical examina- tions. He was inside the UFO for over three hours

Explanation: Probable hoax. Suspicious parallelism exists with the already-
publicized Tendilla case. The hypnosis session turned out to be full of leading questions.

(Sources: A. Ribera, Secuestrados por Extraterrestres, Barcelona: Planeta,
198 1. Contactos Extraterrestres, No. 1, 1979. Flying Saucer Review Vol. 30, Nos. 3,4 and 5, 1985. V. J. Ballester Olmos and J. A. Fernandez.)

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Case No.3.
Vich
(Barcelona), March 28, 1970.
Julio Garcia Moratinos, a deaf-mute youngster of 17, was camping at night when he was taken into a 48-meter-long hemispherical object by two tall, hairy creatures who had suckers in lieu of hands. A humanoid-like, small robot also appeared. The young man was transported to a planet situated on the opposite side of the Sun with respect to the Earth, where he stayed for eight years. In the meantime his place was taken by a "double"

Explanation: Fantasy inspired by published abductions and the Star Wars movie.
(Source: First-hand, CEI. V. J. Ballester Olmos and J. A. Fernandez.)
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Case No.4: Almogia (Malaga),1976.
Francisco Suarez Bravo, a 48-year-old shepherd, was abducted by human-like "extraterrestrials." He was taken in a big, "two-story" craft to the planet "Galaxy 38,"
where he married a woman named Maria, one of its inhabitants. He came back to Earth four years after the abduction, when he managed to es-cape in one of the alien crafts.
Explanation: Fraud concocted to conceal a case of abandonment of home. Rustic imagery linked to the subject's scanty culture.
(Source: El Caso, June 21, 1980. V. J. Ballester Olmos and J. A. Fernandez)

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Case No. 5: Jumilla
(Murcia), July 1947.
Prospera Munoz, a 42-year-old telephonist, well-read in science-fiction and UFOs, read her first UFO book containing abduction material and started to re- call an abduction she suffered when she was 7 or 8 years old. She was abducted by two beings of her own stature and received an extensive medical exami- nation. She believes a metallic device was implanted in her brain. She had further encounters with alien creatures in 1954, 1960 and 197 1. Under hypnosis she only confirmed her memories.

Explanation: Depression in a woman under dramatic psychological stress.

(Sources: A. Ribera, En el Tunel del Tiempo. Barcelona: Planeta 1984. Cuadernos de Ufologia No. 4, December 1988. Flying Saucer Review Vol. 29, No.4, 1984. First-hand, J. Ruesga. First-hand, C. Berche.)

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Case No. 6: Vallgorguina (Barcelona), July 21, 1985.
Xavier C., 23 years of age, had left his house to photograph a dolmen located 25 km away. He returned home more than 24 hours later, a full day that he did not remember at all. When his film was processed, a few slides appeared showing fuzzy silhouettes of hands with claws and a series of green, monstrous faces of apparently helmeted beings. Under hypnosis, he related an abduction episode which included a medical examination aided by instruments, performed by strange creatures who manufactured an exact "double" of him. Months later, the witness saw his double boarding a bus in Barcelona City.

Explanation: Hoax/psychosis.
Unreliable testimony from subject belonging to esoteric circles, prior witness of bedroom apparitions. Sloppy hypnosis procedures.
(Sources: Flying Saucer Review Vo1.31, No. 4, 1986, and Vo1.32 No.2, 1987. Cuadernos de Ufologia
No. 1 July 1987. V. J. Ballester Olmos and J. A. Fernandez).

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Summary of Spanish Reports
This systematic review of the abduction reports in Spain has disclosed that all cases can be reasonably explained in terms which do not defy present-day knowledge. Conventional scenarios, deeply rooted in psychological and fraudulent backgrounds, have been found. In none of the cases was extraordi- nary evidence presented to support an anomalous event or a novel phenome- non.
It should be emphasized that the resolution of these cases in terms of hoax, delusion or psychosis has been proposed by dedicated UFO investigators, not by debunkers or dogmatic skeptics; consequently, it is unrealistic to suggest that the interpretations are biased.
Cases also seem to be influenced by the impact of published reports and by the subsequent media follow-up, in a sort of feedback effect.
(,,,)
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Vicente Juan Ballester Olmos,entrevista&
http://mitosdelmilenio.com.ar/entrev5.htm

En la tabla 'explicativa' los diagnosticos van un poco más allá...

1/Tendilla,Guadalajara = Hoax

2/Medinaceli,Soria =Probable Hoar

3/Vich,Barcelona= Deafmute fantasy

4/Almogia, Malaga= Hoar

5/Jumilla, Murcia = Psychosis& Hoax element

6/Vallgorguina, Barcelona= Psychosis& Hoax element

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Parece que los medios animaron a la gente a contar sus experiencias,
para luego estudiar el fenomeno,,,los primeros resultados españoles
fueron un poco decepcionantes.Iker está relanzando el tema,
empezando por el primer caso'cronologico de Jumilla.Pero los
primeros casos de la Guadalajara/Soria profunda, como detonante
del fenomeno por acá, son dignos de investigar también, y las
zonas son aisladas e interesantes.

Pero los lectores desconfíamos de los diagnosticos psi', desde Olmos
a Gaona, y no es extraño el silencio de los casos.

Pensando mal, los primeros casos pudieron lanzarse como globohoax por/para
material de revistas, y de ahí que conviniera posteriormente desestimarlos como
hoax, mientras que los dos ultimos casos florecieron como elementos psicoticos
(y hoax por si acaso)
Fueron buenos años,,,

Después del franquismo,los 'jóvenes' de la capital se echaron al
monte, alimentados por revistas ufológicas y fiestas, encontrandose
cosas por las zonas boscosas que aun hoy los amantes del
misterio tendrían que pasear, si son imprudentes,,,

...los fenomenos no era desconocidos para los que ya llevaban allá algun
tiempo ó los propios del lugar, como siempre pasa,,,


Incluso Iker se intranquiliza si tiene que volver al eje oskuro de
Ribas de Santiuste/Sigüenza/etc

Después del franquismo,los 'jóvenes' de la capital se echaron al
monte, alimentados por revistas ufológicas y fiestas, encontrandose
cosas por las zonas boscosas que aun hoy los amantes del
misterio tendrían que pasear, si son imprudentes,,,

...los fenomenos no era desconocidos para los que ya llevaban allá algun
tiempo ó los propios del lugar, como siempre pasa,,,


Incluso Iker se intranquiliza si tiene que volver al eje oskuro de
Ribas de Santiuste/Sigüenza/etc

Precisar que no queremos decir que sean casos falsos.Simplemente que el lanzamiento
Tendilla/Medinaceli pudo ser realzado, en esta zona determinada, para ver si los
que largan por lo bajo contaban publicamente sus experiencias,ya entonces.Para
sacar información de una zona ya conocida,vamos.No creemos que tuvieran
mucho exito, pero sin duda había/hay recogidos muchos casos que no han trascendido,
que nunca fueron oficiales,etc.

Posterior en publicación, es el recuerdo espontáneo de Prospera en 1979,
leyendo a Ribera,que curiosamente llevará su caso a Argentina cuatro años después,
con todos los rasgos de fenomeno 'internacional' (implantes,etc)...
Pero al situarse la acción hacia 1947 muchas voces dan poco credito a la historia.

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La primera vez que su caso salió a la luz fue el pasado mes de diciembre ('1982'), en el Congreso Internacional de UfoloIgía de Rosario (Argentina), donde lo expuso el investigador catalán Antonio Rivera.Rivera fue precisamente el motivo de que Próspera Muñoz saliera de su amnesia. Hace cuatro años(1979), la testigo estaba leyendo El gran enigma de los platillos volantes, escrito por el citado investigador, cuando le vinieron a su mente, a retazos, los hechos que había vivido.

(El País, 25 Oct 1983)

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/ultima/Prospera/Munoz/elpepiult/19831025elpepiult_6/Tes

http://photos.forteantimes.com/images/front_picture_library_UK/dir_11/fortean_times_5842_7.jpg

NUEVO TRABAJO DE JOSEMI !!!