Whitley: "I'm very curious, just to interrupt for a second. How many of you have stories like that, about things you know didn't happen that you've been telling all your life?"
Jenny: "All my life I used to hear my mother — in my head there was this thing saying, 'You're lying, you're lying,' but my mother never said it. My whole, life from the time I was five years old."
Fred: "Yeah, yes to that question from my point of view also. I know it happened but I can't believe it. And the other thing is, what's nice about the group, to get back on that for a second, we look at each other and we say, 'I can't believe her story, I can't believe his story, I can't believe your story. I can't believe my story.' And vet, there's a comfort which we still sure because behind it all, oh, it's all the same. We don't understand it, but something happened."
Pat: "There's an acceptance."
Sally: "You know, the first time I realized something had happened that wasn't a figment of my imagination, wasn't some subconscious thing or something or a creative element of my mind or something, I was reading Betty Andreasson's story [ The Andreasson Affair by Raymond E. Fowler]; she described a detail of some sort of crystal boots they had put on her. They had clear bottoms, like a platform, and there was some sort of electrical thing, something inside this clear platform. And that's exactly what I had on my feet. Exactly. And I said I cannot believe some other woman could possibly have had the exact same thing on her feet, that her imagination could be exactly like mine. And I just said, 'No way,' and the tears starting coming down my face, and I said, 'That's it.' And I was totally upset. I couldn't sleep, I tossed and turned, I was dust a mess. I wanted to hide somewhere. Horrible."
Joan: "Isn't it a relief when you find it isn't your imagination?"
Sally: "No! Horrible! Except if I was called a liar. But otherwise, no."
Joan: "I figure it's a relief."
Whitley: "I would have gone insane if I thought it was my imagination. At first it was perfectly obvious to me, I was going crazy. I expected to just go around the bend. The realization that it wasn't my imagination, when they, came in such a way that I couldn't deny it, even if I wanted to —"
Joan: "Has everybody had an experience when they were five?"
(General agreement. Some said maybe four, or very young.) Whitley (to Amy): "Any thoughts? Do you know what happened to you?"
Amy: "Yeah, I know. I want to say what Mary talked about. One time it seems real, and the next time it's not real."
Mary: "Every time I look at the pictures of my backyard, then it's real." (It was from her yard that Budd Hopkins obtained the sample of calcinated earth.) Amy: "Sally mentioned Betty Andreasson's book. I looked at a few pages and I couldn't read the book. I knew I would be terrified and I don't know why. I had this trouble feeling like — I have daughters — and I was afraid."
Tom (a college teacher who does UFO research but has not had an experience): "In a way I feel envious of everyone here because you've all had a glimpse into another world, another dimension perhaps. And in a way you've seen the future, if I could even say that, which may or may not be true, if I could even say that. You have seen what might, in fact, be coming eventually down the line. At least, there are people who believe that. And so, you all have a sort of special knowledge that very few other people have."
Sally: "The, question is, what kind of knowledge is it and what if we don't really want it? And if you don't want it, then you refuse to accept it, and if you refuse to accept it, you don't have it, so it's sort of like this whole thing — it's like if you could see something inside of a ship and say 'Is that real?' because you've never seen it before. We're not really food witnesses. I mean, we have just little pieces of things. If we were just allowed to explore one of these ships, imagine the information we could get. But just with little innocent people being abducted, it's not enough. Even though it may be a glimpse. It's a fragment."
Whitley: "I don't think it'll ever come out completely into the public eye. And when it does, it won't be as intimate as these experiences. People will see it, you know, like something in the sky that everybody sees and it's there for four days, that kind of thing."
Sam: "At what level of belief are we? Do we all believe that we had single experiences and they're gone? Or do you believe they come back and forth type of thing Do you believe they're here all the time among us?"
Pat: "How many people have the sense of continuous monitoring?"
Jenny: "Being watched all the time?"
Pat: "Continuous monitoring."
Joan: "I have a very strong feeling."
Whitley: "I do, too."
Pat: "How many people have the sense that there is something involving permanent relocation?"
(Mixed reaction.)
Whitley: "I have persistent images of being in another place. Sometimes it's parklike, sometimes very bright."
Fred: "I do, too. Very bright."
Pat: "What makes us afraid of the change'?'
Joan: "The sense of not being in control."
Pat: "I don't think they have individual DNA. I think they're all pretty much the same. They're interested m us because we are different. And we value the difference, and our individual freedom. And we feel that when we were abducted, that individual freedom has been taken away, and they don't understand that. They don't really understand our sense of freedom and being allowed our own will."
Sam: "They were almost like under military discipline.'
Whitley: "That was my impression."
Sam: "They had instructions and they followed their instructions, and that was it."
Whitley: "Do you suppose we see robots?"
Sam: "I thought of that."
Mark: "Fanatic, or just disciplined?"
Sam: "Disciplined."
Jenny: "That's right, I remember them all walking the same way."
Sally: "Moving in unison, speaking in unison?" (Unified movement is often reported, such as three individuals walking in lockstep.)
Joan: "I can imagine something above them that's speaking through them. They're to do their job."
Jenny: "You don't feel any personality —"
Whitley: "And yet at times I feel incredible personality. She's the strongest personality in my life."
Jenny: "Oh, I feel that way tool I el a personality but I don't know where it comes from. When I try to picture there, they are one sort of thing, going. But there's this sort of force —"
Pat: "One that cares a great deal."
Fred: "There is one, at least in my case, that I can identify that had that force of personality. He was directing the whole operation. Everything. The others were simply not even taking orders. It's not that an order was barked at them or said to them. They just — boom, boom, boom, did it. I felt like I was even superior to them. I felt like slapping one of them. There was always one you felt comfort under, security under."
Jenny: "Like he was part of me. In me."
Mary: "There's a little part of him in me all the time."
Sally: "One did try to comfort me but I refused it. I didn't want to buy any of it. Actually, what my feeling was, I felt that if I looked at him, I was — sort of like looking at the person who robs you. Someone comes up and he has a mask on and if you take down the mask, uh-oh, you're going to be killed now. You've identified him. So I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to believe it and I didn't want to become a part of it. I felt if I removed myself I would be safe. I won't look at you, I won't identify you, I won't tell anyone what you look like. So I dust said, 'I won't look at you.' That was just my feeling. If I could identify him my life would be in danger." (Note: Sally's experience involves seeing not only visitors but seeming humans involved with them. It is these people that she apparently did not wish to recognize.)
Sam: "It felt like one superior intelligence. Very, very powerful sense of intelligence. All the rest were nothing."