[Micele]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/johnmack.html

Interview with John Mack

Psychiatrist, Harvard University

laatste stukje:

NOVA: Many say that this is just really a function of cultural images.

MACK: ...I have been looking at this phenomenon as it manifests in indigenous people, in Native Americans—the Cherokee, the Hopi, who know these beings as the star people. We've looked at this in South Africa, particularly in interviewing in depth a leading South African sangoma, or medicine man, who calls these beings "mandingdas".

We've investigated it in Brazil with a farmer in—outside Belo Horizante who had identical abduction experiences to what have been reported in this country. I'm getting recent—I received a letter about abduction experiences from a person in Malaysia today. In other words, this is—as far as we can tell—a worldwide phenomenon. This is not restricted, as some people have thought, to Western or particularly American culture.

....I found that the higher or the greater the stake that a person has in this society, in their position or their job, the more reluctant they are to admit that they've had abduction experiences......When abductees went on television with me during the spring of 1994, during my book tours, and wanted to communicate and educate about it, a number of them received threats to their jobs. Some of them lost them....we have one man in management consultation, lost an important contract. A woman that worked for the federal government, who was an abductee, was threatened with loss of her job. In other words, this is not something that is regarded as acceptable.

I've interviewed airline pilots who have had sighting—close up sightings of UFOs. They will not report it, because they will be removed from their work. Even if they've had abduction experience, they will not talk about it. And 25 to 30 percent of airline pilots, according to a survey that one of the people I've talked with did, have had close up sightings, but will not discuss it.

This simply is not something that is accepted as OK to talk about or—And that may be changing. I recently saw a Harvard Divinity School student, and I asked him these questions. I said: Do you talk about this among your fellow students? And he said: 'Oh, yes.' And it turned out several of them had also had abduction experiences. And even the ones that had not, were fascinated, interested, didn't ridicule 'em. So maybe the climate is changing.