21x12 - The Abduction Files

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR: All over the world,
there are people

who claim they have
been abducted by aliens.

SELMA SYREK:
I heard a thump from my bed,

and at the edge of the bed

were two gray individuals.

ERIK NANSTIEL: It felt like
a needle had been inserted

into my femur bone.

WHITLEY STRIEBER:
As soon as I realized I had

an implant, my
immediate response was,

"My God, they're tracking me.

I want this out of my head."

NARRATOR: Since the 1970s,

a growing number of researchers

have dedicated their lives
to uncovering what is behind

this disturbing phenomenon.

Are humans really
being taken off Earth

by extraterrestrial entities?

And if so, what is their agenda?

GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: The fact of the matter
is, as far as abductions are concerned,

they're not a
modern-day phenomenon.

It has been happening

for thousands of years.

Weekly news and culture
newspaper The Village Voice

publishes a sensational article

titled "Sane Citizen
Sees UFO in New Jersey."

The author is New York
resident Budd Hopkins.

WILLIAM HENRY: Bud Hopkins
was not a ufologist, he was an artist.

His fascination with UFOs
began when a neighbor,

a local businessman
named George O'Barski,

told him about a strange
sighting that he had

where a craft
descended from the sky

and landed in a nearby field.

Hopkins writes about
this in The Village Voice,

and at the end of the
article, he invites people

to share any similar
experiences they might have had.

And he's inundated with
hundreds of responses

and is deeply impacted
by that response.

NARRATOR: The public
response to The Village Voice article

was beyond anything Budd
Hopkins could have imagined.

As hundreds of UFO witnesses

shared their stories
over the following weeks,

Hopkins was compelled
to dedicate much more

of his time to
researching the subject,

and what he began to find
is that many experiencers

not only saw strange
objects in the sky,

but also claimed to have
been abducted by aliens.

KATHLEEN MARDEN: Budd
Hopkins started to collect evidence,

and he started to have
meetings of experiencers

in his apartment in New York

where they could gather together

to speak with one another.

He was outstanding

as an investigator,
as a researcher.

GRACE HOPKINS: My father
liked bringing people together.

He liked the idea of
people helping each other,

'cause that's what, in his
mind, this was all about,

was just trying to get
to the bottom of the truth

and help people

and figure out what it
was that happened to them.

LINDA MOULTON HOWE:
Budd had the courage, had the guts

to take on what was
happening to people who said

they knew that these
strange lights in the sky

were connected

to when something entered
their bedroom at night.

NARRATOR: Peter Robbins,
a fellow New York artist,

was one of the experiencers
who reached out to Hopkins.

PETER ROBBINS: I cold
called him. I told him that I had

had a sighting when I was a kid

and my sister had an experience.

Budd invited me over for coffee.

We talked about
UFOs, and the time

when my sister and
I had our sighting.

NARRATOR: Peter's
encounter occurred in 1961,

when he was just 14 years old.

ROBBINS: One afternoon

my sister and I

were in the front of the house
that we grew up in, playing,

and I caught something out
of my right peripheral vision

and called her attention
to it immediately.

Six silvery-white
disc-shaped objects

stopped over the
neighbor's house.

I don't know how long it lasted.

It could have been
several minutes.

And at a certain point,

bang, I'm out.

NARRATOR: Peter
woke up on the ground

after losing consciousness,

and the disc-shaped
objects were gone.

But many years later,
he learned that his sister

Helen's experience
went much further.

At the time, Helen
was 12 years old,

and she not only saw the
same disc-shaped objects

that Peter witnessed,
but she also remembered

being taken aboard
one of the craft.

ROBBINS: She said,
"I saw a blue light

"sh**t out of the bottom
of one of these things.

"And I rose off the ground.

"Then my memory is, I'm inside,

"and I'm being walked through

"a curved metal hallway
by a number of small beings,

"and one large one who
talked to me in my head.

"The big one.

"And the next thing I know,

"I'm on a metal table.

"I have no clothes
on. I'm surrounded by

"half a dozen or so of these
beings, and the big one.

And then, I'm on the ground."

NARRATOR: The story Peter
told of his sister Helen's encounter

was one of the first
abduction accounts

Budd Hopkins ever documented.

Sharing a fascination with
this strange phenomenon,

the two men began
to work together,

cataloging the hundreds of
other alien abduction accounts

Hopkins was receiving.

The first couple of years,
there really was no area

of UFO abduction research.

He was creating
it, in great part,

along with a very small
handful of other people,

approaching the subject
as scientifically as he could.

He's a real intellectual.
He was extremely well read.

Insatiably curious.

I think there are
many backgrounds

that are great for
being a ufologist,

and we think,
technically, first,

scientist,
psychologist, whatever.

Being an artist is valuable.

It lets you think
out of the box.

NICK POPE: Budd Hopkins
made a number of observations

about alien abductions
which are, I think,

key to understanding
the wider phenomenon.

RICHARD DOLAN: Budd
Hopkins particularly started noticing

that a lot of abductees would
have these bizarre marks

on their body as if

a piece of skin was taken out
for examination and so forth.

POPE: Also, he
noticed, for example, that

very often, these were
not isolated accounts.

People had had a
lifetime of experiences,

starting in childhood.

He also discovered
that it ran in the family.

NARRATOR: Hopkins
was surprised by how many

alleged alien
abductees reported that

other members of their
family had also been taken.

And perhaps the
most intriguing example

of generational abductions
began with the famous case

of Betty and Barney Hill.

POPE: The Betty and Barney
Hill case from September 1961

is really the best-known
early account we have.

Betty and Barney Hill,
from New Hampshire,

are travelling in their car

late at night. They see a UFO.

They become distressed,

and then they get home
and they find that their journey

has taken longer than they
expected by several hours.

Subsequently, they recalled
being taken on board a ship

and encountering
extraterrestrials.

Years later,
Betty's sister Janet

and Janet's daughter Kathleen

had their own
abduction experience.

It occurred when they
were at a relative's house

and a strange craft was
witnessed landing in the yard.

There were two witnesses
to the craft that night.

And my mother and I recalled

finding ourselves

in a strange environment,

confused. I was
lying on a table.

There were tests
being done on me,

and I had physiological
changes in my body

the following day.

Pain that was abnormal.

I did have other
abduction experiences

periodically
throughout my lifetime,

and they stopped
about ten years ago.

NARRATOR: Multiple
abductions occurring within families,

experiences continuing
throughout a person's lifetime,

and strange physical marks
appearing after abduction events

are just a few of the
many commonalities

Budd Hopkins discovered
during his research.

But perhaps most importantly,

he found evidence that there

could be millions of people
who are completely unaware

that they have been
abducted by aliens.

NARRATOR: Budd Hopkins
publishes his first book

on alien abductions.

The title, Missing Time,

is based on a phenomenon
experienced by nearly

every alleged alien abductee.

POPE: Often, these
alien abduction accounts

are associated
with a UFO sighting,

but part of the experience

will be wiped from the memory.

So, they have a period
of so-called "missing time."

Then they get dreams

or flashbacks that
something happened.

There are a number
of theories about this.

Maybe some sort of
mind control technique,

maybe some sort of
hypnotic, implanted suggestion.

Often, abductees only
have vague recollections

that something unusual
and disturbing took place.

These entities might
want to induce amnesia

to protect the human from
the traumatic experience.

Or it might be for their
own purposes, as well.

NARRATOR: One person who claims

to have experienced missing time

is retired Navajo Nations
Ranger Jon Dover.

Through my 31-year
career in law enforcement

up on the Navajo Nation,

I've had a lot of travel
time on the roads.

And I started having incidences

where I'd lose half
hour increments of time

over several years.

In one case,

I blinked,

and when I opened my eyes,

I was 15 miles
further down the road.

NARRATOR: Is it possible

that Jon Dover's
missing time experiences

are connected to
alien abductions?

While he has no
recollection of what happened

during these periods
of missing time,

curiously,

Jon has also had
recurring dreams

involving a giant,
disc-shaped craft.

DOVER: When I was young,

I had a reoccurring dream

that me and my
sister left the house.

Across the street
is a little park.

And in my dream, we go up there,

and there's a
disc sitting there.

And that's where my dream ends.

Years later, my
older sister tells me

that she had the same dream,
and we started comparing notes.

She says there was a hatch.

And I remember the hatch.

And she says, "You
ran right into that thing."

And I... For the life of
me, I don't remember.

I've had people tell me

that what I experienced
was an abduction event.

I am still skeptical,

and I don't have a
good explanation,

other than it was
something really weird.

NARRATOR: Might the fact

that people commonly
experience missing time

but have no recollection
of what happened to them

indicate that there could
be many alien abductees

who never realize
they have been taken?

Budd Hopkins considered
this a very real possibility,

and went in search of a way

to help unlock the missing
memories of abductees.

At the end of 20th century,

regression hypnosis
became a popular tool

used by psychiatrists
and psychologists

for helping people retrieve
traumatic memories.

Budd Hopkins starts to
use hypnosis as a tool

for retrieving missing
time experiences

and retrieving
memories en masse.

HOPKINS: A lot of
times, Dad thought of it as,

it's a trauma situation, and
so you chose to forget it.

And that's, I think, why he
got involved in the hypnosis,

because it was
kind of going past

that trauma to try to find
out what actually happened.

HENRY: Now, hypnosis has
its critics and its controversy.

The hypnotist can be
implanting false memories

and leading subjects
into areas that,

simply, they'd
never experienced.

DOLAN: You got to
be careful about this.

But Hopkins often did
publish a lot of the transcripts

of the sessions that they did,

so you can actually read
along what they were doing and,

you can say, "This
looks legitimate.

"I'm not seeing anything

"in what this person is
doing to elicit false positives.

"I'm therefore going
to provisionally say,

"'This looks like it
could be happening.'"

NARRATOR: One of the most
significant abduction events

Hopkins helped to uncover
through hypnotic regression

was that of author
Whitley Strieber.

Strieber had established
himself as a horror writer

with books like The
Wolfen and The Hunger.

But one night at his
cabin in upstate New York,

he had a terrifying encounter

that, as far as he
was concerned,

was very real.

I had an experience
in December of 1985

where I woke up in
a room full of these,

what appeared to
me to be large insects.

And I was immobilized,

and they invaded my
body in various ways.

And I ended up back home,

in a state of
complete confusion.

NARRATOR: Unable to comprehend
what had happened to him,

Strieber searched for ways to
explain his traumatic encounter.

Before long,

he came across the research
being done by Budd Hopkins.

I looked him up, and he
lived a few blocks from us.

So my wife Anne
and I went to see him.

And he proceeded to get me

to one of the world's
leading forensic hypnotists,

Dr. Donald Klein,

and he wanted to hypnotize me,

because he said hypnosis
would help me concentrate

on my memories.

And it was just
absolutely terrifying.

NARRATOR: Under hypnosis,

Strieber revealed details of
numerous harrowing experiences

with what he believed
to be otherworldly visitors.

After piecing together
what happened to him

as best he could,

Strieber wrote
about his encounters

in his best-selling
book, Communion.

STRIEBER: When I
published Communion,

Budd and I thought there
were maybe 50 or 100

or 200 people in the world
who had had this experience.

To my astonishment,
after the book came out,

we began to get letters.

We got a few letters,
a few more letters.

Then one morning,
two postmen came,

and poured boxes of letters
onto our living room floor, in heaps.

NARRATOR: Strieber's
accounts of his alien abductions

resonated with millions
of people across the world.

And as more experiencers
came forward to tell their stories,

new revelations
would begin to emerge

about the phenomenon
and a potential...

alien agenda.

NARRATOR: It's nearly dawn,

and five-year-old Selma
Syrek is asleep in her bed,

when suddenly,

she is awoken by an event

that will have a profound
impact on the rest of her life.

SYREK: I heard
a thump, and I see

this small individual that I
thought was maybe a child.

I was five years old,
and of average height.

And this person
was smaller than me.

And he turns around,

like, suddenly, and
I stop in my track.

His eyes are large, but actually
quite beautiful in some way.

They kind of, like, look like
they're wet and luminous.

And not frightening.

But of course, you know,

I've never seen an
individual like this,

with the dent in
the top of the head,

and a pointy chin.

So, having a sort
of an insect-like face,

but still child-like.

And it turned out

there were two individuals.

They were performing an exam

right through the blanket.

Mostly what I remember...
my arms and my legs.

They were just looking
and holding them.

They had a conversation of
some kind between the two of them.

NARRATOR: The
encounters continued

sporadically throughout
Selma's childhood.

But as she entered her twenties,

her experiences took
on a new dimension.

According to Selma,

the beings began
taking her to a place

she calls, simply,
"the classroom."

SYREK: I have
experienced many episodes

of being put in a classroom.

And I don't know if the
classrooms are holographic,

or if they're inside a
craft, but it feels real.

The teaching was
done via a screen.

And it could be
anything from cosmology,

archeology,

ancient documents that
apply to science today.

And they would show you how

early groups of humans
had this knowledge.

And they would show how
humanity evolved with assistance.

We have been
completely assisted.

They had an agenda,
they were performing it.

And I think it's for mankind,
for humanity's benefit.

NARRATOR: Selma
Syrek's extraordinary account

resonates strongly, not only
with abduction researchers,

but also with ancient
astronaut theorists.

A key tenet of the
ancient astronaut theory

is that humans are the creation
of extraterrestrial visitors.

The ancient astronaut
theory proposes

that humans are the result
of a genetic modification

that extraterrestrials
performed on h*m* sapiens

thousands of years ago.

And these visitors then
conveyed important information

to our ancestors

to help accelerate the
advancement of civilization.

And sometimes they even
took certain people off Earth

to give them this
special knowledge.

So, what's really interesting

about these
modern-day abductions

is the fact that we have
similar stories in ancient times.

HENRY: This abduction phenomena

goes all the way
back to the bible.

There's the story of Elijah,
who ascends into the heavens.

The story of Enoch,
who's taken up into Heaven

by the archangel Michael.

TSOUKALOS: Enoch was
said to have been taken up

into the heavens,

and there he received
knowledge by the so-called angels.

For example, that angel
showed him out the window,

and said, "The moon that
you can see is full of light,

but the moon receives
the light from the sun."

So, you know, this
has been happening

for thousands of years.

NARRATOR: Could it
be that extraterrestrials

are abducting humans in
order to relay information,

just as ancient astronaut
theorists believe happened

thousands of years ago?

Numerous experiencers have
claimed to receive information

from an otherworldly
source in a variety of ways.

While Selma Syrek
describes being taught

in a classroom-type setting,

author Whitley Strieber claims

that advanced knowledge
is communicated to him

by means of an alien implant.

He believes the device
was implanted in his ear

during an encounter
that occurred

four years after the publication

of his autobiographical
novel Communion.

STRIEBER: It was about 11:00.

I somehow ended up
lying on my right side,

and there is something
pushing my head down

into the pillow in waves.

There were these dark
figures standing around.

A few minutes later,
there was a flash of light...

and they were gone.

A few days after,
it became clear

that there was
something in my ear

because you could feel it.

And it hadn't been there before.

My immediate response was,

"My God, they're tracking
me. I want this out of my head."

NARRATOR: For years,
Whitley had no idea

what the purpose of
the implant might be.

But then, one day,
it suddenly activated.

The ear gets warm.
You can feel it.

There's just this little slit
that opens up in my eye.

And I can see words
racing past in it.

And the result is that I can
write the most detailed things

about genetics and so forth.

I wouldn't have been able
to do that without the implant.

NARRATOR: Could Whitley
Strieber really have an alien implant

that is feeding him information?

Incredibly, dozens
of alien abductees

have had strange
metallic objects

surgically removed
from their bodies.

DOLAN: The most interesting
physical evidence of abductions

might very well be the
implants that were removed

through the auspices
of Dr. Roger Leir.

And he collected close
to a dozen of them.

Roger Leir wrote and
talked about these implants

at great length, and
they had been studied,

by himself and by chemists
and electrical engineers.

Leir actually said they
gave off a radio frequency.

They were incredibly
sophisticated.

NARRATOR: In 2014,

Dr. Roger Leir died
of a heart attack,

and his collection of
alleged alien implants

mysteriously disappeared.

DOLAN: Roger Leir
is no longer with us,

but what I would like to
know is where the heck

those implants are today.

It was a fascinating,
fascinating,

piece of potential evidence

that I think should
be followed up on.

NARRATOR: Do accounts like
Selma Syrek's and Whitley Stieber's

along with mysterious implants
extracted from alleged abductees

reveal that alien abductions

are about the
transfer of information?

Researchers suggest
there is more to the story,

and point to the many
abduction accounts

that involve the
harvesting of DNA.

NARRATOR: Through
a mutual friend,

famous alien abduction
researcher Budd Hopkins

is introduced to Harvard
professor Dr. John Mack.

POPE: John Mack was
professor of psychiatry

at Harvard Medical School.

He was an establishment figure.

Budd Hopkins approached
John Mack and said, "Look,

I'm getting all these
cases. What do you think?"

John Mack, his initial,

almost jocular response
was, "Well, I think they're crazy,

and I think you're probably
crazy, too, for believing them."

But John Mack looked at

some of Budd
Hopkins' case files.

Then he started to meet
with some of the abductees.

MARDEN: John Mack wondered

if this was some kind
of new mental illness.

Was this public hysteria?

Why were, suddenly,

all of these people
coming forward

saying that they had had these
experiences with nonhumans?

He opened a center
at Harvard University.

He conducted a study
of 200 individuals.

He did psychological testing.

He did interviews on camera.

DOLAN: By and
large, John Mack found

exactly what every other
researcher into this found,

which is that most of
these people are very stable.

They've all had
these very consistent

types of experiences.

HOPKINS: It's not anything
anybody wants to have happen,

And that's what I always
sort of went back to

when I met these people:
they have nothing to gain,

everything to lose,

and they're all in pain,
and it's the same pain.

CAROLINE CORY: John
Mack had to take it seriously,

because his patients
were truly suffering.

They displayed
trauma telling the story.

They were experiencing
very strong PTSD symptoms.

They were literally
reliving these stories,

and shaking, crying,

having all sorts of
anxiety come up.

As a trained psychiatrist,

he could tell what is
truth and what isn't.

POPE: Slowly but surely,

John Mack became convinced
that this was a real phenomenon.

And so, here you
have this intellectual,

academic heavyweight

saying alien
abductions are real.

What is extraordinary about it

is the consistency
of the stories

amongst people who
are of sound mind,

who come forth very reluctantly,

who doubt their own stories,

who describe what they've
gone through with great emotion.

So, something is occurring
that is entering our world.

NARRATOR: In 1994,

Dr. Mack published his
research in his best-selling book

Abduction: Human
Encounters with Aliens.

While the book was
highly controversial

among his colleagues
and drew sharp criticism

from the board at
Harvard University,

it also led to the alien
abduction phenomenon

being taken more
seriously than ever before.

And as Dr. Mack met with
more and more patients,

he found that one particularly
unsettling experience

came up frequently.

HOWE: It was very
clear to Dr. Mack

that we were dealing
with nonhumans

extracting tissue, blood,

sperm from the males
and eggs from the females.

What this taking of eggs,
taking of sperm from the men

What the aliens will tell us

is that it has something
to do with evolution,

that we're moving to
another level of creation.

NARRATOR: Are the
incredible revelations

that emerged during
Dr. Mack's research

evidence of an alien
agenda for humanity?

Perhaps further
clues can be found

by examining the account
of a man who claims

to have had genetic material
extracted from his body

on multiple occasions.

Graphic artist Erik Nanstiel

begins to experience
strange occurrences

in his bedroom late at night.

It started with things being
disturbed in my bedroom

that I noticed were changed

between when I'd
go to bed at night

and then when I'd
wake up in the morning.

I did not know if I
was being taken,

I just had an intuition

that there were
intruders in my bedroom,

and after two weeks,
something happened.

I woke up in my garage

and I was
suspended off the floor

and I was looking
down at a small Grey.

NARRATOR: After the
encounter in his garage,

Erik began to have reoccurring
and often violent experiences

with the same Grey beings.

According to his account,

they would use some
kind of medical equipment

to extract blood and
fluids from his body.

NANSTIEL: Typically,
what they would do

is they would collect semen.

But there were times
where I suspected

they were taking bone marrow.

I believe they took
some from my left arm.

My left arm was k*lling me.

I could only move it a
few degrees of movement,

and it was swollen
for an entire month.

I suspect that they took
bone marrow from my hip.

It felt like a needle had been
inserted into my femur bone.

They're determined to take
genetic material from me

one way or another,

and I absolutely
felt like a lab rat.

NARRATOR: Could
extraterrestrials be harvesting

genetic material from humans,

as John Mack and many
abductees have claimed?

Ancient astronaut
theorists say yes,

and suggest that
otherworldly visitors

could be creating
alien-human hybrids.

NARRATOR: Over the
course of five decades

that have passed
since Budd Hopkins

first started investigating
alien abductions,

researchers have found that one
of the most common experiences

reported by abductees

is the extraction
of genetic material

such as blood, semen and ova.

And Erik Nanstiel believes
he was shown what happens

with that material.

There was an abduction
where they took me into a room...

where I was faced with a
pewter-grey, featureless wall.

And suddenly, it turned into
some kind of an image screen

and I was shown

three rows of rectangular
portraits of faces.

They told me that
"These are your offspring,

these are your children."

And the children that I saw

were of varying ages, so
they've been coming for me

and making hybrids
for some time.

NARRATOR: According to Erik,
during one surreal experience,

his abductors brought him into
some kind of examination room

where he encountered
one of his alleged children.

I did actually meet
one of the offspring.

He was on a metal table
and I got a glimpse of him

and I could see he was a boy.

And the very tall Grey
that was there with me...

he was, like, seven feet
tall... he said, "He's yours,

"but he has a genetic problem,

"and we have you
here to provide samples

so we can correct his problem."

NARRATOR: The children
that Erik says he was shown

did not appear
abnormal in any way.

But he believes they are part

of an extraterrestrial
experiment

and are not entirely human.

I believe they're hybrids.

I believe they're part human,

part who knows how
many other species.

NARRATOR: After being
shown images of the children,

Erik shared his experiences
with his immediate family.

NANSTIEL: I've told
both my brothers about it,

My eldest brother,
he's very supportive.

He has his own
religious interpretation

of what these things are.

I do not take a
religious interpretation.

These are
flesh-and-blood beings,

they're from somewhere
else, they have the technology

to come here from
somewhere else,

and I think they
maintain bases here

and I think they're running
a breeding program.

My only question
at this point is,

what do they plan to
do with these offspring?

NARRATOR: Could Erik
Nanstiel's incredible account be true?

Did extraterrestrials
not only abduct him

but also use him to
create hybrid offspring?

As sensational as it may sound,

alien abduction
researchers today

have heard dozens
of similar stories.

Alien abductees often report

a similar set of very
consistent details

regarding being in a
medical-type facility,

a sanitized room,

whereupon medical
procedures soon follow.

If it's a male abductee,

they often report
extraction of semen,

often by very uncomfortable
and even painful means.

If it's a female, they
report artificial insemination.

Later, they report
being introduced

to alien-human hybrid children,

with an inference that these
are in fact their own children.

POPE: Very often, one hears
accounts of a hybridization program.

This is thought to involve,
sometimes, crossbreeding

humans with extraterrestrials,
perhaps to save their race.

Talk about a dying
race needing an input

of fresh DNA, fresh material.

Or to create a new race...

merging them and
us to create new life.

NARRATOR: Is it possible
that extraterrestrials

are abducting humans as
part of a breeding program?

And if so, why?

Researchers believe
that some alien abductees

may already be
hybrids themselves.

We do hear about stories,
even since biblical times,

where, for example,
someone is being abducted,

and when they come
back, their babies

have been replaced
with another baby.

We hear about hybrid children.

We do hear these stories
since the beginning of time.

When John Mack started
working with abductees...

he begins to find some
of his cases involve people

who recall almost having,
literally, a dual identity

as extraterrestrial and human.

So, perhaps this program,
this breeding program,

this hybridization program,
has been going for longer than

maybe we figured,

and John Mack is getting
some of these people

who were produced as
a result of this program.

Yeah, the whole hybridization
idea is a fascinating one.

So, then that leads
to the question of

is there evidence of alien
DNA in the population?

Are these people actually
in human society or not?

There's a lot of
unanswered questions here.

NARRATOR: As more
people come forward

to openly discuss
their abductions,

researchers are finding

that the harvesting
of genetic material

and the passing
on of information

are two of the most widely
reported experiences.

And as far as ancient astronaut
theorists are concerned,

the accumulated data
is beginning to point

to an undeniable connection

to humankind's very beginnings.

NARRATOR: Today, UFO phenomena

has become an important
part of our modern society.

NARRATOR: UFOs are openly
investigated by the government,

reported by both civilians
and military personnel

and captured on video.

NARRATOR: But alien
abductions still remain

mostly a fringe topic.

We don't hear as much

about abductions
nowadays as we used to.

I think part of that is just
the fact that we've had

the New York Times
article about AATIP,

we've had the U.S. Navy videos

and everything that led to
in terms of whistleblowers,

in terms of
congressional inquiries,

in terms of the government
setting up a program again.

Abductions have taken
a bit of a back seat.

They've not gone away.

We know that UFOs
are still underreported.

And it's doubly, triply,

orders of magnitude more
the case with abductions.

And so, we can really only
guess at the numbers involved.

I mean, I know, just from
my own government work,

that there are thousands,
maybe tens of thousands,

if not more, cases out there.

NARRATOR: While the
U.S. government is focused

on investigating UFOs,

there is a growing number
of civilian researchers

that are now
dedicating their time

to the alien abduction
phenomenon.

POPE: It's been left to
private research groups.

So, we have, for example, ICAR,

the International Community
for Alien Research.

MUFON, as well, the
Mutual UFO Network,

have put a lot of
resources into this.

They actually have their ERT,

which is "experiencer
resource team."

And they will run, effectively,

a sort of network support
group for these people.

And that's needed.

There's really not much
out there for these people.

NARRATOR: While
there are now many groups

studying the alien
abduction phenomenon

and speaking with experiencers,

there is still no consensus as to
why abductions are happening.

But one rather
surprising revelation

has emerged from
the statistical data.

MARDEN: 71% of our survey takers

said that if they could end
their experiences today,

they would not.

Among the group
identified as abductees,


not end their experience

if they were given a choice.

After an individual has worked
through their initial trauma,

they gain an understanding
of what is occurring.

Then, they can lose that
fear and work cooperatively

with these nonhumans.

NANSTIEL: Generally, I would
say I wish it'd never happened.

But I have to admit,

I'm very fascinated
by all of this.

I don't believe
that they're here

to invade the Earth

and impose their way of life.

I believe that they want
to upgrade humanity

so we will be a
gentler, wiser species.

They want to make us into

responsible
stewards of our planet.

STRIEBER: At first, I
was scared to death,

but I was also so damn curious.

My curiosity overcame my fear,

and eventually, we
built a relationship.

What's it like now?

It's the center of my life.

I was changed for the better.

There's no question
in my mind about that.

SYREK: My life has been greatly
enhanced by these encounters.

Knowing that we are
not alone in the universe,

knowing that we are
cared for and taught?

There's a, just, tremendous hope

and joy in a future
that they see for us.

NARRATOR: Is the alien
abduction phenomenon

part of an
extraterrestrial project

that dates to the very
beginnings of humankind?

Could it be that
we are, in fact,

being directed and upgraded

by the very beings
who created us?

And if so, might
the ultimate agenda be for us

to become like them?

Perhaps one day soon,

the true purpose
behind these abductions

will be revealed

when we are reunited
with our alien ancestors.