Roach’s search for an answer led her into the world of alien abduction. The theory explained the little men, the invasion of the house, and the other details. The problem was that no evidence, other than the somewhat fragmented testimonies of her children were ever offered, and they had been under her influence for nearly two years before investigators arrived.
There seems to be little evidence that anything extraterrestrial happened to Roach and her family. The tale came out of a desire to believe, the contamination of the news media and, more importantly, to the scientist who conducted the hypnotic regression sessions. It is obvious that he wanted a report that would underscore and validate the Hill abduction and he unconsciously provided the details for Roach to do that.
While it might be that the circumstances around the Roach case were unique, and now that it seems logical that Roach had suffered an episode of sleep paralysis, it wouldn’t have happened without the unconscious and sometimes unsubtle coaching of Dr. Harder. To fully understand alien abduction, it would be necessary to learn just how pervasive such coaching might be.
What is important to learn from this case is that sleep paralysis can be the explanation for some, but certainly not all cases of alien abduction. As some researchers have pointed out, and rightly so, some witnesses, such as the Hills, were abducted while wide awake. If there is a terrestrial explanation for the Hills, it does not lie in the direction of sleep paralysis.
Secondly, it must be noted that Harder did, unfortunately and probably unconsciously, lead Roach into the details that she hadn’t gotten from the magazine article. His desire to validate the Hill case with another, similar case becomes obvious when the transcripts are read.
Third, it much be noted that the stories offered by the children were not as complete or as detailed as that told by their mother. A logical conclusion to be drawn is the children, in talking with their mother picked up those details from their mother, but hadn’t observed anything themselves.
In the end, this case doesn’t involve an abduction. The answer is terrestrial and it seems that there will be no new evidence in the case. And even though we can draw this conclusion about this case, it is not an explanation that can be applied to all reports of abduction. The search for answers must be continued in those other cases but the Roach abduction report can be removed from the unidentified category.
Alien Abduction in Pop Culture
(Special Note: Since there has been some discussion of the elements contained in this partial chapter from The Abduction Enigma, I thought I would reprint it here. It addresses the issue of the cultural elements that have found their way into abduction reports and it mentions some of the early work done by some others. Christopher Allen wanted to address Martin Kottmeyer’s essays on pop cultural influences, suggesting, I guess, that the theory was somehow original to Kottmeyer and none of the rest of us had realized it until he thought of it. As you’ll see, these arguments pre-date some of Kottmeyer’s work ((the witness whose abduction matched Killers from Spaceso closely was regressed in 1976, for example and I realized the moment I heard it where it originated)), and you’ll see that reference is made to Kottmeyer’s articles. The bibliography for The Abduction Enigma contains five articles and papers published by Kottmeyer.)
David Jacobs (seen here) has argued that the UFO phenomenon sprang into existence in 1947. Thomas Bullard suggested that the Barney and Betty Hill abduction of 1961 had no cultural sources from which to draw. And Budd Hopkins has claimed that the beings reported by abductees are like no "traditional sci-fi gods and devils." In other words, each is arguing that UFOs and abductions must be real because there are no cultural sources from which the witnesses could draw the material. Without those sources of material, the witnesses must be relating real events rather than some sort of folklore history even though the airship scare of the late nineteenth century demonstrates that the fundamental assumptions by each are inaccurate and the rich history of cultural elements argues against them.
It seems ridiculous to suggest that a phenomenon that has no substantial evidence of its existence other than witness testimony must be real because there is nothing in the past that relates to it. Because there are no past traditions, how did each of these witnesses, who have never communicated, relate similar events if not reporting, accurately, something they have witnessed? This is the question posed by many UFO investigators and abduction researchers.
The answer is, of course, that the cultural precedents demanded by Hopkins, Jacobs and Bullard (seen here) do exist. Pop culture from the beginning of the twentieth century is filled with examples of alien beings and alien spacecraft that match, to an astonishing degree, the beings and craft being reported today by the abductees.
To completely understand the cultural influences we must examine the pop cultural world. At the turn of the last century information moved at a slower pace, but it still had the impact it does today.
For example, there were no radio stations that played the latest music. Instead, sheet music was sold. To sell it, without radio to play the songs, music stores hired piano players and singers. The music circulated through the culture much more slowly, but no less completely. A hit, on sheet music, might take weeks or months to move from one coast to the other, but the point is, it could and frequently did.
Think about that. Music would move from coast to coast. Musicians would hear it in one city and play it in the next. Vaudeville performers used the same popular music in their acts. Player pianos played it to audiences in all sorts of environments. Before long everyone in the country was singing the song, or playing it at home, all without records, radio, national broadcasts or MTV and before Ipods and YouTube.
This demonstrates just how information can be passed from person to person without the modern technology. It also suggest that arguments claiming that one person could not have heard a specific story because it had no national forum is wrong. The information, whether it is music at the turn of the century or information about abductions, can enter into a "collective consciousness." Simply, it moves from person to person until all have been exposed to it.
The introduction of movies, radio, and other mass media, however, have made it even easier to spread data, and provides more opportunities for all of us to be exposed to it. An abductee might claim no interest in science fiction, but that doesn't mean that he or she has not been exposed to the elements of science fiction.
One of the first movies made was the 1902 version of Jules Verne's First Men in the Moon. Walt Disney used parts of it on his old Sunday night show and while science fiction might not have been the theme that night, millions saw it. Since that time, Verne's work has been translated into dozens of films in dozens of versions. They have been broadcast on television for more than fifty years.
H.G. Wells was responsible for more than just adding science fiction to pop culture. His War of the Worlds, first published before the turn of the last century was responsible for one of the great "hoaxes" in American history. In 1938, Orson Welles, in a radio program broadcast nationally, reported on an alien invasion launched by beings from the planet Mars. The panic that developed during that broadcast has been studied for years afterwards.
Even those who hadn't heard the original radio broadcast learned about the after effects. Sociological studies have been done on the mob psychology that produced the panic. But more importantly, it brought the concept of alien invasion into the homes of average American before the 1940s. They might not be reading science fiction, but they were seeing the results of science fiction spread across the front pages of their newspapers.