Witnessed

Rating:
Summary: A "WITNESSED" Alien Abduction
Review: Although this book was originally published five years ago, its story is still evolving. Budd Hopkins account of a multi-person abduction on 30 November 1989 at 03:00 is nothing short of amazing, until you understand that the event was actually witnessed by multiple observers. According to Hopkins, on 21 July 2001 at a MUFON conference in Irvine CA, he has 26 witnesses with whom he is dealing on this case! Though there are many names, including Linda Cortile's, that have been changed for their own privacy there are some that can be deduced from the context (and others can be determined from the Web). Some of the names may be important because it becomes obvious to the reader, and it is believed by Hopkins, that this UFO landing and abduction is "as close to the White House lawn" as we have gotten. The fact seems to be that this event was put on as a "show" for high-level United Nations and other government officials. Apparently, this case has had visibility of the U.S. President and the Pope. If you have wondered about UFOs, aliens, and abductions--READ THIS BOOK, and then, read it again! It is an excellent book, and a detailed account of an amazing event.

Rating:
Summary: Scared the ... out of me
Review: Believers will believe and nonbelievers will not believe. To believe the story of a real-life abduction and how it affected those who witnessed it, you have to trust the author who writes it. I must say, Hopkins seems like a nice guy and he also seems believable. Reading the book, you get to know the guy and how he does his investigatory work in trying to verify whether this incident actually happened.

Problem is, of course, that reading the book is an act of faith. You will never really know if the sources made anything up. On one hand, you think, these sources have no motive to lie, and too many people would have to conspire to weave a web of lies and remain consistent in reporting the story to Hopkins. Based on their lifestyles, social class and professions, several critical sources could not possibly have known each other before the witnessed abduction. What what about the power of suggestion? There are no real answers, but this is a great read. It will change the way you react to UFO stories.

And I'll say this: if even HALF this book is true, we are in big trouble. BIG trouble. Read the book to find out why.

Rating:
Summary: Long-winded and shaky alien soap opera
Review: I expected more from the first true book I've read about this type of phenomena. The book should have been a third of its 398 pages, because in the end, all you have is a couple of people's stories, however compelling they are, to judge for their truthfulness. The three cental figures connected to the Linda Cortile case won't reveal themselves, so we're left wondering if she made them up(by sending letters to the author) to further her sensational means. There isn't any real evidence other than a xray that used to show an object in Mrs. Cortile's nose, which is no longer there, well, because the aliens took it out. Hopkins conviction and analysis is compelling, as well as some interesting side stories. But in the end, even if the events did take place, which is possible, what happened is kinda silly. With obsessed top security agents, a wierd "world leader", and criss-crossing generational alien meetings, this should have preferably been a 30 page article.

Rating:
Summary: good fiction, shoddy science
Review: i picked this book from my family?s shelf over the holidays, since i ran out of my own reading material.
i actually thought it was pretty well written. especially in the beginning it?s a real page-turner, with more and more people being introduced that are more or less deeply involved in this whole abduction affair. the book also gradually reveals more and more, and has many teasers like ?but i would find out much more from richard later? which makes for gripping reading. towards the middle and the end though it became a bit too outlandish and slow paced, to keep me fully interested. nevertheless, i enjoyed this as a piece of fiction, and it gets 4 stars for that.

however, it seems to me this book is meant to be a scientific account of what *really* happened. and i?ll give budd a little credit here. he claims to tape interviews in the presence of third parties showing that his questions aren?t leading, he sometimes questions abductees? accounts, and at one point he even ridicules other abductees? books for their claim of being ?the chosen one?, ?the emissary? of the aliens to tell us the *real truth* of life, the universe, and everything. yet in the end budd always believes the tales of his abductees, and he always explains inconsistencies away so that the tales fit one, his model, and possible alternatives are ultimately always neglected. also, some accounts he calls believable because they so overlap with other people?s accounts, and others he calls believable because they are different from other people?s, thus showing the person isn?t just parroting what they?ve heard and read, making them very reliable. well duh! the only thing this proves is that budd is totally biased, but certainly nothing about the credibility of the witnesses. furthermore, it seems to me all these witnesses have elephant memory. even when not hypnotized, they remember things 6 years past, and dreams with such detail. have they written everything down right after they saw it? (budd doesn?t say so), or is their memory just 100 times better than mine and all the people i know?
and then there?s a (small) section called physical proof. listed as such are drawings of the witnesses, which just are absolutely *not* physical proof. then there?s two pictures of sand, one sample of sand from the beach, and the other swiped from inside the UFO, out of some kind of sand-processor. one shows big grains, one shows small grains. well, whatever they are, these pictures proof that somebody has invented the sieve here. well done, but not exactly alien warp drive technology! also, we are being promised an analysis of the samples by some university, but it?s never mentioned again in the book. lastly, there is a [bad] picture of a head X-ray, which could be anything, and didn?t mean a thing to the medical doctors i showed i to.

i guess by now you get my drift. this book is written by a believer, for believers. it pretends to be scientific, but isn?t. ultimately, it makes pretty extraordinary claims, and thus extraordinary evidence would be needed to convince anybody who hasn?t made up their mind, and who is not too gullible. is budd a liar? i don?t know, i have no evidence for that, but this book presented no evidence either that aliens are abducting us and experimenting on us. 1 star for the science contents, one and a half for trying.

Rating:
Summary: Highly complex and fascinating if true
Review: I read the book three times, strolled near the apartment complex where it happened, and even spoke to some people in the building.Most didnt know anything about it although one lady told me that people told her that the street was lit up. She however,slept through the night without incident. My question to Mr. Hopkins: How come you did not make a greater effort to track down witnesses in this neighborhood where thousands LIVE? You wrote in your book that you d9id not know how. Also- Did any new witnesses come forward since the book came out? Why dont you have a website where people can ask these questions? One more- How was your witness able to sketch the area so well after seeing the object only a few minutes on the bridge? If you will not answer these and other questions people will always doubt your story. Otherwise the book is a great read.

Rating:
Summary: This book kept me up at night!
Review: I've enjoyed other books by Budd Hopkins and this one met my expectations. I feel for the people who have lost their reality, and that's why I say their "reality rug" is gone.

Budd has written about how certain people are repeatidly abducted throughout their life. Through hypnosis the main events concern Linda. Linda finds out she's been abducted numerous times starting when she was very young. How does one's brain process these tramatic events? How can she protect her children? How does a marriage survive inconceivable events like this?

Then Linda is abducted by two men that witnessed a particular event. They want to find out if she's a human or a "half-breed". She is fighting for her life on an earthly plane and with her alien abductors...and then it gets even more strange. I won't tell you everything, but let's just say, "the butler didn't do it". :-)

I started reading this genre, because I saw a white cigar shaped object floating over a lake one night with my parents and siblings. We were out watching the bats fly around. Never found out what it So very glad for that!

Rating:
Summary: Fact or Fiction?
Review: If this book is true (half of me hopes it is as I don't want to be conned, and half of me hopes it isn't as it's extremely worrying!)it is truly an amazing story, well worth reading if you have an interest in UFOs. It makes you lie awake at night hoping you're not going to be the next abductee. I feel sorry for what Linda Cortile went through (and is still going through?) but the worst thing is that it seems to be happening to her son too. Congratulations, Budd Hopkins on a remarkable book.

Rating:
Summary: Witmessed?
Review: Sometimes, and while reading books that deal with the Ufo-aliens-alien abduction issue i feel that i perfectly understand the "nonbelievers"...If you're going to read a book which purpotedly accounts for the sighting and the witnessing of an alien space craft which adducted human beings from a very central part of a city, well, then, you'd expect the author that wrote the book to have gone to greater lengths than the ones he went through.
And having said that, I should add that i would count myself in as a "believer" (however naive and superficial if not religious such a term is)..
But: when you claim that a spacecraft which was very brightly lit came to a quite central part of a city, abducted someone by elevating her and pulling her through her apartment window, and then dove into a nearby river, i would expect (and others too) that you would find way more witnesses than those accounted for in the book.
Hopkins, the author, offers the abductee herself, 2 ex-secret service (?) agents, and a central political figure as witnesses. Now from these, only the real name of the abductee is used as the two agents offer whatever "evidence" they do on condition of anonymity and the same goes for the politician who also saw the happening. For reasons best know to the author, he claims that he couldnt find more witnesses even though that seems highly unlikely for a very populated area such as that where the incident took place.

As far as other evidence is concerned, he offers the hypnotism sessions he conducted with the abductee as well as some drawings and samples of sand. It's not all that shoddy as I'm describing so far though.
Even with so "little"evidence what Hopkins offers (if entirely true) is nevertheless compelling. You do of course have to take him at his word, but if you do, then it seems that an ultraweird sighting and abduction took place in the end of the 80's..One where an alien spacecraft totally disregarded whether it was attracting massive attention (as if it was intending to?) and went forth with its mission.
This is by no means a new "feature" in alien abduction literature and/or lore. During other sightings as well, craft and their crew have been "acting" as if they couldn't have been less bothered about attracting attention.
The one new element Hopkins offers goes beyond the sighting itself and it adds a whole new dimension to what's possibly involved in alien abductions.
Through his hypnotism sessions and subsequent crosschecking with the other 2 witnesses the author discovers a common "childhood" among these formerly not familiar to each other people, a common childhood that seems to be monitored by "beings" that all 3 witnesses recall in detail and who seem to have followed up the whole process with an abduction at a mauch later date when one of the witnesses (a woman) has already grown to an adult. Further investigation by Hopkins shows that the other 2 witnesses may at one point also have been abducted.

The possibility that another species is actually setting up "separate childhoods" for us, where not only are we monitored (so our behavior over a long period of time can be observed)but we are also beeing set up with future "mates" so the structure of human relationships can be studied in detail is -to put it ultramildly- very interesting...

Overall, this is a book addressed to those who are already in "familair" territory with the issue. I dont see how someone who has never read such a book wont be "alienated" (pun intended) with the offerings in it.

Rating:
Summary: Witmessed?
Review: Sometimes, and while reading books that deal with the Ufo-aliens-alien abduction issue i feel that i perfectly understand the "nonbelievers"...If you're going to read a book which purpotedly accounts for the sighting and the witnessing of an alien space craft which adducted human beings from a very central part of a city, well, then, you'd expect the author that wrote the book to have gone to greater lengths than the ones he went through.
And having said that, I should add that i would count myself in as a "believer" (however naive and superficial if not religious such a term is)..
But: when you claim that a spacecraft which was very brightly lit came to a quite central part of a city, abducted someone by elevating her and pulling her through her apartment window, and then dove into a nearby river, i would expect (and others too) that you would find way more witnesses than those accounted for in the book.
Hopkins, the author, offers the abductee herself, 2 ex-secret service (?) agents, and a central political figure as witnesses. Now from these, only the real name of the abductee is used as the two agents offer whatever "evidence" they do on condition of anonymity and the same goes for the politician who also saw the happening. For reasons best know to the author, he claims that he couldnt find more witnesses even though that seems highly unlikely for a very populated area such as that where the incident took place.

As far as other evidence is concerned, he offers the hypnotism sessions he conducted with the abductee as well as some drawings and samples of sand. It's not all that shoddy as I'm describing so far though.
Even with so "little"evidence what Hopkins offers (if entirely true) is nevertheless compelling. You do of course have to take him at his word, but if you do, then it seems that an ultraweird sighting and abduction took place in the end of the 80's..One where an alien spacecraft totally disregarded whether it was attracting massive attention (as if it was intending to?) and went forth with its mission.
This is by no means a new "feature" in alien abduction literature and/or lore. During other sightings as well, craft and their crew have been "acting" as if they couldn't have been less bothered about attracting attention.
The one new element Hopkins offers goes beyond the sighting itself and it adds a whole new dimension to what's possibly involved in alien abductions.
Through his hypnotism sessions and subsequent crosschecking with the other 2 witnesses the author discovers a common "childhood" among these formerly not familiar to each other people, a common childhood that seems to be monitored by "beings" that all 3 witnesses recall in detail and who seem to have followed up the whole process with an abduction at a mauch later date when one of the witnesses (a woman) has already grown to an adult. Further investigation by Hopkins shows that the other 2 witnesses may at one point also have been abducted.

The possibility that another species is actually setting up "separate childhoods" for us, where not only are we monitored (so our behavior over a long period of time can be observed)but we are also beeing set up with future "mates" so the structure of human relationships can be studied in detail is -to put it ultramildly- very interesting...

Overall, this is a book addressed to those who are already in "familair" territory with the issue. I dont see how someone who has never read such a book wont be "alienated" (pun intended) with the offerings in it.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent accounting, by an honest man
Review: This true story is fascinating. The facts in this case, where it happened, how it happened, and who saw it happen, are at once both believable and eerily strange. And Budd Hopkins' writing style is unleavened, which I appreciate. The many facets of this case caused me to ponder, repeatedly, just what the aliens are really up to, and what might happen next. It amazes me how even abductees don't know the answers to these questions. But despite the many questions that go unanswered at the conclusion of this book, there is still plenty of meat to sink one's teeth into. I find myself thinking of this story every time the subject of UFO's comes up in conversation on AOL chat, and I am very glad I read it. Highly and confidently recommended.