What I can say in favor of these transcripts is that they represent the response of an honest man to the efforts of a recognized expert in the field of medical hypnosis.
One of the greatest challenges to science in our age is from morn superstitions such as UFO cults and people who are beginning to take instruction from space brothers. Charlatans ranging from magicians to "psychic healers" have tried to gather money and power for themselves at the expense of science. And this is tragic. When one looks at the vast dollars that go each year to the astrology industry and thinks what that money would have done for us in the hands of astronomers and astrophysicists, it is possible to feel very frustrated. Had the astronomers been awash in these funds, perhaps they would have already solved the problem that I am grappling with now. I respect astrology in its context as an ancient human tradition. Still, I wish the astronomers could share royalties from the astrology books.
I did not believe in UFOs at all before this happened. And I would have laughed in the face of anybody who claimed contact. Period. I am not a candidate for conversion to any new religion that involves belief in benevolent space brothers, or in unidentified flying objects as the craft of intergalactic saints — or sinners.
And yet my experience happened to me, and much of it is recorded not in an unconscious context but in ordinary memory. If we are dealing with a new system of beliefs on its way to becoming fixed into religious dogma, the way the religion is in my case emerging, right into the middle of a mind with no obvious allegiance to it at all, suggests that real belief could be a totally misunderstood biological process capable of occasionally issuing forth from some extraordinary and unsuspected structure of the brain far more concrete than Jung's collective unconscious. Thus, even if visitor experiences are an essentially mental phenomenon, to laugh at them or dismiss them as some known form of abnormal behavior when they obviously are not is in effect to be silent before the presence of the new. Science should bring its best efforts to this, which means good studies that proceed from open and skillfully drawn hypotheses.
If mine is a real experience of visitors, it is among the deepest and most extensive as yet recorded, and I hope it will be of value if they emerge. If it is an experience of something else, then I warn you: This "something else" is a power within us, maybe some central power of the soul, and we had best try to understand it before it overcomes objective efforts to control it.
What follows here are two transcripts of hypnotic regressions, covering my buried memories of October 4 and December 26, 1985. That these are buried memories and not imaginations worked out in the doctor's office seems hard to dispute. The mechanism that buried them is no different from that which places any particularly terrifying experience behind a wall of amnesia. Beginning with Freud, the process of screen memory has been extensively documented.
The hypnosis used on me was not qualitatively different from that used on police witnesses. And the same caveats that apply to police cases apply to this case — those and no others. It should be remembered, though, that — even given my earnest effort — I am describing what I perceived, which may or may not have been what was actually there. We really do not have enough experience with our reaction to extreme strangeness to know how we alter such memories.
Donald Klein met me in his subdued gray office on East Seventy-ninth Street in Manhattan. He is a tall man with curly hair and a quiet demeanor. Two things were immediately apparent to me about him as a hypnotist. First, I sensed command; he was confident of his skills. Second, he was a thorough, careful man with a very acute mind.
I had never been hypnotized before, and I was apprehensive about it. As it turned out, my apprehension was for the wrong reasons. I was afraid of relinquishing control over myself, which seemed deeply disturbing. Control, as may be imagined, was a central issue in a life such as the one I had been leading.
I found, though, that I trusted Don Klein when he told me that even under hypnosis people cannot be readily compelled to say things they do not want to say. I would not be out of control, not really.
The process of becoming hypnotized was pleasant. I sat in a comfortable chair. Dr. Klein stood before me and asked me to look up at his finger, which was placed so that I had almost to roll my eyes into my head to see it. He moved it from side to side and suggested that I relax. No more than half a minute lacer, it seemed, I was unable to hold my eyes open. Then he began saying that my eyelids were getting heavy, and they did indeed get heavy. The next thing I knew, my eyes were closed.
At that point I felt relaxed and calm, but not asleep. I was aware of my surroundings. I could feel my face growing slack, and soon Dr. Klein began to say that my right hand was getting warm. It got warm, and then he progressed to my arm, and then my whole body. I was now sitting, totally comfortable, encased in warmth. I still felt as if I had a will of my own, a sensation that was never to leave me. In fact, the hypnotized subject does have a will of his own, very much so. But he is also open to suggestion.
After some preliminary questions, preparing me by asking me to recall my birthday and then Labor Day weekend, Dr. Klein proceeded to the afternoon of October 4. I wish to add that Budd Hopkins was present at both of these sessions, recording them. He was allowed to ask questions, but only at the end of each session, and it was understood that his questions would be few. They are identified with his name in the transcripts. All other questions were put by Dr. Klein.
Events of October 4, 1985
SESSION DATE: March 1, 1986
SUBJECT: Whitley Strieber
PSYCHIATRIST: Donald Klein, MD
[This is an actual transcript of my first hypnosis. Nothing has been left out. This is what happened when my memories were examined under hypnotic regression.
Dr. Klein began the session with Labor Day. As I grew more comfortable with the process of remembering, he drew me closer to the night in question.]
"Now, we're going forward a little further, to the beginning of the month of October. Right around October first, 1985. Can you tell me where you are right now?"
"Yeah, I'm working on the Russian book."
"What book?"
"The Russian book."
"What's that?"
"It's a novel about Russia. I've got a good idea I'm working on the Russian book."
"Where are you?"
"I'm at home in the city."
"You have any plans for the weekend?"
"Yeah, we're gonna take Jacques and Annie up to the country and I don't know whether or not Jacques is going to fit in the jeep."
"Who are Jacques and Annie?"
"Jacques is a friend. Annie is his girlfriend."
"Now you're driving up to the country."
"Yeah.
"In a Jeep?"
"Yeah, it's a jeep Wagoneer. We're not having any problems. Annie's very small, so Jacques can fit. He's to the backseat and my son's happy because he likes Jacques a lot. I put on a tape but nobody liked it. So we talked. 'I'm gonna take you all out to dinner tonight. It's too late to stop for groceries. We're gonna go to the — you want to go to the Top of the Falls?' We had a lot of trouble deciding about that. I remember that, but then we went to the Top of the Falls."
"Go forward to that time now."
"Yeah."
"How are you feeling?"
"Oh, I'm enjoying myself thoroughly."