Hopkins vs Clancy

It’s so strange to me when a non-scientist starts bashing the scientific community. Specifically, UFO abduction guru Bud Hopkins on this recent teapot tempest regarding Susan Clancy. He wrote a 3000+ word essay which can be found here.

Hopkins is not happy with the direction the study took, its participants, the methodology or the people conducting the study. Bud’s unhappy because (presumably) he’s the head cheese in the alien abduction business and no snot nosed collage edgumacated -psycho-hologest type person has any right to horn into HIS henhouse. That’¢s what I get from reading him anyway. I mean, what’s not to understand? Hopkins’s been doing the UFO abduction ‘thang for years now. He has a popular following and we all know that it’s numbers not truth that’s important. If we all scunch up our eyes and believe real hard!

This is some of what Hopkins had to say about the Clancy/McNally study.

Richard McNally and Susan Clancy, the two psychologists involved with the study never consulted with him or other UFO “researchers” before conducting it. Since they did not consult the so-called experts in the UFO field (Hopkins himself or some other famous UFO researcher, the study suffered “egregious errors” which “seriously damaged”the work.

Her subjects were self-selected, that is they answered an advertisement in the paper. This method is flawed because some of the respondents will not have good reason to believe they had been abducted by aliens. According to Hopkins, researched and verified abductees should have been used. Heck! Any reader of one of Hopkins’s books would have done MUCH better in the survey, everyone knows that!

McNallly, who was researching post traumatic stress disorder among abductees commented that he didn’t feel aliens were being abducted at all. That the PTSD was due to false memories built up over a matter of time to explain some strange occurrence.

Hopkins;

He announced that, since we “know” that UFO abductions don’t exist, all of his subjects’ accounts have to be false memories. And since they registered just as powerfully as “true” memories, what the test shows, he explained, is that “false” memories can be just as traumatic as “real” memories!

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In effect, McNally seemed to be saying that even if his own test results support the traumatic reality of the abduction phenomenon, that fact changes nothing since UFO ABDUCTIONS JUST DO NOT EXIST, and that somehow, someway, he will make his test results fit his hypothesis!

That’s pretty strong language from someone who’s not really a psychologist. Clancy and McNally were not studying UFOs, aliens, crazy theories, antigravity or much of anything that would interest Hopkins. They were doing a survey of people who believed that they had been abducted by aliens. And not just the people that Hopkins hypnotized and (allegedly) worked them to a point where they believed it. They wanted people who just believed they had been abducted, untainted by the prevailing UFO biz (or one of it’s head honchos.) Hopkins’s verified abductees would not respond the same, not after years of his so-called therapy and half-assed regression.

Hopkins;

“Though as a faith-based scientist, Susan Clancy has no problem asserting her absolute belief that all UFO abduction accounts are nothing more than false memories, she is left with the problem of explaining how these memories are generated. By what process can many thousands of extremely similar accounts from around the world come into the heads of this multitude.”

Yes and she explains this problem, in some detail too. But I’¢m struck with Hopkins epistle that Clancy is a faith based scientist. True she does not believe in UFO abductions or aliens. So what?

In Hopkins’s world, one had to believe that aliens routinely take people from their beds (their cars or wherever) to conduct crude and hideous experiments before one can do good research. In reality (and in science,) belief is not a pre-requisite. In fact, it can be a detriment. A real researcher would never proclaim something like “we know aliens are here” unless there was a preponderance of evidence so that no other conclusion was possible. It’s amusing that he berates a real psychologist who announced ahead of time what the study was about (research into memory) and lambastes them for not believing in aliens on scientific grounds! Since they were not studying UFOs to begin with, what’s the problem with that?

Hopkins also makes the following points.

 1. She (Clancy) included no study of the patterns of well-known and clearly defined physical sequelae – scoop marks and straight-line cuts – that frequently appear on individuals after their abductions.

Well, not speaking as a medical doctor (nether is Mr. Hopkins but that’s another issue.) I can say with some certainly that strange scars and so-called scoop marks appear on many people who don’t claim to have been abducted by aliens. Has Mr. Hopkins ever surveyed groups of individuals that don’t believe in aliens for strange scars? He’s making a conclusion here without evidence.

” 2. She included no reference to the patterns of ground traces – altered soil, tree branches snapped off from the top down, affects on the surrounding foliage, etc. that are often discovered at UFO landing sites after abductions.”

Of course not! She also did not include descriptions of their automobiles, the architecture of their homes or their driveways. These things are irrelevant. She was surveying the people, not their environment. More impotently, she was not trying to prove some forgone conclusion like most UFO researchers. As a matter of fact, Clancy is a psychologist and not a UFO researcher at all. She wanted to study a small group of people who tell similar stories.

” 3. She made no mention of the eye-witness testimony of neighbors observing a UFO hovering over a house where an abduction is taking place; of witnesses who search in vain for an abducted child who is later found outside a fully locked house; of the incidents in which the police are summoned because of the temporary disappearance of a baby from his crib or a child from her bedroom, but who turn up, unobserved, an hour or so later; or hundreds of similar cases in which abductees are known to be inexplicably missing.”

Pretty much the same comment as number three. I find it odd that Hopkins can’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact that some people don’t live in the same world that he does. Most people don’t believe in flying saucers and, some people don’t need to prove pet theories about aliens like he does.

” 4. She made no mention of the bizarre errors the UFO occupants often make, such as returning individuals from group abductions wearing someone else’s clothes; replacing abductees in the wrong room or building after an abduction; or returning an individual to her bedroom in a locked and bolted house with her feet soiled and the back of her nightgown covered with damp leaves; or any of the scores of other such significant errors.”

Seems to me that one must first presuppose that aliens abducted these people to do that. Why even bother with the research in that case? You’re bashing her because she’s approaching the problem in an unscientific way, then you suggest she approach the issue in a completely prejudicial way. What kind of a scientist are you?
Answer; you ‘r not and you don’t approach the issue scientifically (QED)

“. She made no mention of the hundreds of cases in which two or more individuals are abducted at once, and whose traumatic memories match in every detail.”

She does mention such things. She didn’t go into great length because it was not relevant to her research into memory.

‘ 6. She made no mention of a few accounts – such as the Travis Walton case or the Linda Cortile abduction – in which numerous witnesses see all or part of the abduction as it is being carried out.

Once again. She’s not trying to validate abduction cases, she was studying people who claim they were abducted. The Walton and the Cortile (Linda Napolitano) case are not verifiable and both contain huge discrepancies–as Hopkins is no doubt aware.

” 7. She made no effort to interview the friends and family members of the people in her sample, or in fact anyone who might have insight into their general trustworthiness and emotional soundness. Instead, Susan Clancy alone, because of her faith in the non-existence of UFO abductions, decided that all of her subjects’ abduction accounts were false, and that all of their traumatic recollections were nothing more than false memories. She is therefore implying – indirectly but absolutely – that none of her subjects can tell the difference between dream and reality. To the public at large, this means, in effect, that an experimental psychologist with a Harvard degree believes everyone claiming UFO abduction experiences is suffering from a form of mental illness.”

She didn’t say that in fact, she says quite the opposite. What she says is in effect, the false memory hypothesis is the most likely explanation. I don’t recall her making any kind of judgment call on the abductees she interviewed and remarked several times (outside of their secret beliefs) how stable many of their lives were.

Basically; Hopkins is simply mirroring his constituent base. Belief in UFOs is little more than a religious-superstitious exercise. It’s not scientific, it’s full of people who fervently want to have some explanation to some very odd memories. Clancy and McNally have done (to my knowledge) one the few scientific studies of people who make such claims and they’ve found some striking patterns.

Naturally this does not sit well with the believer community because it tends to strip away some of the mystery surrounding UFOs and people who claim they were abducted. It also tends to devaluate people like Bud Hopkins who literally wrote the book on the abduction phenomena. It’s unreasonable to expect him to re look at his conclusions, like most people howling over this pair of psychologist he can only invoke disdain and illogic to try and batter down real science.

What those of us who are more skeptically inclined see in all of this are people, lead by Mr. Hopkins doing an age old dance of ignoring data that they dislike. This is so typical of any non-rational belief-based ideology that I find it hysterical people like Hopkins foist that same moniker on real research.

It’s suggestive that UFO believers don’t want any real research. They don’t want any snooty scientific type raining on their circus. UFO believers like their circus! They like having control of their field, they like hawking UFO bric-a-brac to each other at UFO conferences. They like their mystery, their X-Files fantasy. It’s suggestive of just how little they care about solving the abduction mystery and how fervently they would like to shut up any contrary thought. They are not scientific, open minded or flexible enough to consider any explanation, other than the one they already believe in.

Aliens!