UFO Abduction Research: The Early Years
Part I
By Budd Hopkins
“The IF [Intruders Foundation] data bank contains a huge amount of pertinent information, and functions as a resource for other investigators in the field.”
Budd Hopkins – A Biographical Note and Position Statement (Circa 1980’s)
Budd Hopkins was born on June 15, 1931, in Wheeling, W.Va. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1953 and moved to New York City where he resided for the rest of his life.
Hopkins is a painter and sculptor, with works in the permanent collections of the Whitney, Guggenheim and Hirshhorn Museums, as well as the Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie-Mellon, the Brooklyn Museum and many others. He has been awarded fellowships by both the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His articles on painting and sculpture have appeared in most major American art magazines, and he has lectured frequently at various Universities, Colleges and Art Museums. He is married to the art historian April Kingsley, and his one daughter, Grace, was born in 1973. The Hopkins-Kingsley family lives and works during the summer months in their studio home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
The Daylight Disc Sighting
Hopkins’ involvement with the UFO phenomenon began in 1964, when he, along with two other witnesses, made a “daylight disc” sighting which lasted two or three minutes. This event triggered his curiosity, and as a result he joined NICAP, began to read the available literature, and gradually amended his previous skepticism. In 1975 he began actively investigating UFO cases, beginning with the report of a landing that took place in North Hudson Park, New Jersey, directly across the Hudson River from 88th St. in Manhattan. The case included at least ten UFO occupants, ground traces at the site, a number of subsidiary witnesses and a police report at the time of the event. After a long, detailed investigation with veteran researcher Ted Bloecher, Hopkins wrote an article about the case which appeared in the New York newspaper The Village Voice and was later reprinted in other periodicals. As a result, Hopkins received additional reports of similar encounters, some of which included periods of unexplained “missing time.”
Working with the aid of Ted Bloecher, psychiatrist Dr. Robert Naiman and psychologist Dr. Aphrodite Clamar, Hopkins began in 1976 to explore a number of these reports in which previously unremembered UFO abductions eventually came to light. In 1981 he published his first book on the subject, Missing Time, a study of the patterns in seven such cases he had investigated. The book was published by Richard Marek/Putnam, and soon thereafter appeared as a Berkeley paperback and, later, in German and Norwegian editions. It is currently in print as a Ballantine paperback. From 1976 on Hopkins has concentrated his UFO research efforts in the area of abduction accounts and is now generally recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities in the field.
Intruders
In 1983, Hopkins investigated the case of “Kathie Davis,” a pseudonym for Debra Tomey, an Indianapolis woman. Entangled in her abduction account was an incident involving a mysteriously terminated pregnancy and a fetus which apparently disappeared. Compelling evidence linked these medical anomalies to Ms. Tomey’s ongoing UFO abductions. As a result Hopkins began routinely to inquire into this and other heretofore overlooked areas of abductees’ medical histories. His discoveries led him to write his second book, Intruders - the Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods, which was published in 1987 by Random House and became one of the few books on the subject ever to be included on the New York Times’ best-seller list. Intruders was re-issued in 1988 in the united states as a paperback by Ballantine and in Great Britain by Sphere Books, a division of Pelican. It has also been published in Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese editions and will soon appear in German, Polish and Portuguese.
MUFON and Intruders Foundation
In 1986 and again in 1988 the Mutual UFO Network presented Hopkins with its award for the year’s most outstanding contribution to UFO research. His goals include bringing the UFO abduction phenomenon to the attention of an ever wider audience of physicians, scientists and mental health professionals as well as the lay public, through articles, lectures and television and radio appearances. In 1989 he founded IF - the Intruders Foundation - as a means of intensifying and supporting these educational efforts. To help possible abductees deal with their disturbing experiences IF has established a network of cooperating therapists and hypnotist/investigators in many cities across the United states and Canada. IF also publishes a quarterly bulletin dedicated to UFO abduction research and the support of those reporting such experiences. Since 1976 Hopkins has personally worked with well over three hundred abductees, investigating their cases and often conducting hypnotic regression sessions. The IF data bank contains a huge amount of pertinent information, and functions as a resource for other investigators in the field.
Early Investigator of Gulf Breeze Sightings
Hopkins’ letters and articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Review of Books, OMNI, Discover, Cosmopolitan, as well as the International UFO Reporter, the MUFON UFO Journal and UFO Magazine.
He was one of the early investigators of a remarkable series of photographic and abduction cases in the Pensacola, Florida, area, and wrote the introduction to a book on the subject by Edward and Frances Walters - The Gulf Breeze Sightings, published by Morrow in 1990.
Continue Reading Part II: A Position Statement on UFO Alien Abductions and Abduction Research
This article is published with the expressed permission of Budd Hopkins for publication on alienjigsaw.com
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