Risk of Harmful False Memories in UAP Studies

Daniel Rekshan, MA, CHt
School of Integral Noetic Science, California Institute for Human Science
Ethical/financial leave of absence justification
September 10, 2024

Introduction

This document is justification for my leave of absence application from the Integral Noetic Sciences (INS) program at the California Institute for Human Science (CIHS) for merged ethical and financial reasons.  I entered CIHS with the explicit research focus on ET/NHI (extraterrestrial or nonhuman intelligence) contact in dreams from a credulous perspective based upon my professional experience with UFO missing time hypnotic regressions and supporting human initiated contact experience (HICE) communities, as well as my personal experience of the phenomenon.  My plan was to pay for tuition from session donations, which was effective until I experienced a crisis of faith regarding NHI/UAP ontology caused by my literature review that connected contemporary UAP Disclosure narratives with pseudoscientific alien abduction research from the early 1990s. My vocational crisis has been exacerbated by unforeseen emergencies like wildfire and financial events like bureaucratically delayed contracts. My ethical concerns about NHI/UAP hypnosis sessions and related research caused financial hardship because I was no longer motivated to schedule sessions since March 30th, although I continued to offer consultations.  I am taking a leave of absence to resolve my vocational/ethical crisis and return to effective professional work to support my tuition payments.  I believe that many of my ethical concerns require institutional statements, guidelines, and on-going consideration to mitigate, which is why I have worked with Esbjörn-Hargens to document my concerns in this way.  As a first student with an explicit NHI/UAP focus, I believe that documenting my concerns, challenges, and proposed resolutions will strengthen the INS program at CIHS with its pioneering concentrations.

While I raise serious ethical concerns about harmful false memories in UAP studies, my concerns are abstract in nature and involve no allegation of academic misconduct.  My concerns focus on overlapping cultural biases, which may cause researchers to confuse dreams or fantasies with objective reality.  I am concerned that UAP studies involve the decentralized generation of traumatic false memories about NHI/UAP encounters, formerly known as alien abduction, through a complex interaction of the academy, experiencer support systems, media producers, named celebrity experiencers, and the intelligence community.  Each part of this complex system appears to be well-intentioned and truthful, yet may present the risk of harmful false memories. My literature review suggested that there is a risk of false memory generation, which may be mitigated through education and sensitization of false memories in the interview process or in authoritative educational statements. I will seek resolution to my ethical concerns during my leave of absence, through which I hope to return to professional work supporting experiencers such that I can continue to pay for tuition through my vocational activity.

This document will briefly present definitions related to UAP studies, a list of ethical concerns, and a list of possible resolutions.  I believe that my ethical concerns require institutional consideration or authoritative statements to be addressed, which is why I am addressing my concerns to the Dean of Research at CIHS as my institutional authority on ethical research.  I hope that my communication of concerns and their resolution will strengthen the UAP and Consciousness Studies concentration such that CIHS may take an ethical lead in this emerging and important field of study.  To be clear, I do not see an immediate risk to human subjects and have good faith that my false memory concerns will be integrated into IRB considerations as SEGRI/WISEN and the UAP studies concentration move forward.  Therefore, this document invites early institutional considerations and actions to mitigate potential future risks involved with UAP studies, experiencer research, and harmful false memories.

Definitions

The ethical concerns outlined in this document arose from my literature review of UAP studies, which is an emerging and complex field of study that encompasses science, pseudoscience, mythology, and media production.  I examined different aspects of UAP studies and ET/NHI encounters through every final paper I wrote at CIHS, for which I sought for adequate references to ground claims in evidence and research literature.  While my review is not yet complete, I have come to several understandings regarding the definitions of key terms in UAP studies.  I say that the alien abduction research of the 1990s, which was published under John E. Mack’s credentials and funded by Robert Bigelow, defined the field of UAP studies in the 1992 booklet Unusual Personal Experiences.  The field has emerged through two phases.  First, Mack’s psychiatric credentials introduced sleep paralysis dreams as evidence for alien abductions, which defined the UFO Abduction Syndrome. (Mack et al., 1992)  Second, Bigelow used Mack’s credentialed introduction of the UFO Abduction Syndrome as justification or motivation for UAP and paranormal studies with the US government, which in turn caused contemporary UAP Disclosure narratives (Cooper et al., 2017) that assume the government is hiding alien spacecraft and bodies (see the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023).  Mack, or those influenced by his alien abduction research through Bigelow, defined many terms in UAP studies such as experiencer, the phenomenon, NHI, and UAP. 

I am concerned that vague and euphemistic terms like experiencer or UAP are overloaded with historical association with pseudoscientific alien abduction research that has been shown to produce harmful false memories.  While I ultimately argue that the phenomenon is real and worth studying, I say that the initial methods used to justify UAP studies and many of its hypotheses are based upon the incorrect interpretation that Mack’s methods were psychiatric rather than transpersonal, therefore incorrectly implying the dreamlike testimony of abduction was veridical eye-witness testimony of physical events.  Dream interpretation is one of most common and documented methods of false memory induction.  My understanding of false memories is derived legal psychology related to accusation of sexual abuse based solely on memories recovered in therapy (Loftus and Ketcham, 1994 and Otgaar et al., 2019), as well as the series of alien abduction false memory research conducted at Harvard in the early 2000s (see Clancy and McNally).

All of my ethical concerns about UAP studies and false memory are centered on the definition of the UFO Abduction Syndrome introduced by Mack and published by Bigelow to 100k mental health professionals (Mack et al., 1992).  Unless an author declares a unique definition of UAPs or ET/NHI contact, I say that we must ethically evaluate claims by the definition of the UFO Abduction Syndrome.  The syndrome definition has strong suggestions for traumatic false memories based on disempowering alien abduction myths. The researchers misidentified text-book characteristics of sleep paralysis and other known dream phenomena (Blackmore, 1998).  Mack’s first subjects claimed their experiences were dreams until he repeatedly hypnotized them to accept the fact they were physical alien abduction events that are essentially traumatic with no chance to stop them (Mack, 1994).  I say that early UFO Abduction Syndrome researchers and therefore contemporary UAP Disclosure researchers are actually dream interpreters who may be violating the fundamental principle of dreamwork ethics: respect of the dreamer, which honors the experiencer as the final authority regarding the significance of a dream (IASD, n.d.). 

Concerns

While my ethical concerns have provoked my leave of absence, I must testify that the concerns are abstract and involve no allegations of misconduct.  My concerns are grave, yet semantic and focused on decentralized systemic processes, rather than on any specific individual or event. However, my consideration of SEGRI/WISEN, the new UAP studies concentration, and recent statements by Esbjörn-Hargens on CIHS-endorsed media provided me with particular instances that precipitated my decision to apply for leave of absence.  I am likewise concerned about the ethics of my own work and research, which I am attempting to resolve before I choose my next professional steps. Any new research in this field may need to address similar concerns, therefore I share my concerns in the hope that they will strengthen the INS program. 

UAP Studies May Violate Dreamwork Ethics

Mack’s influence on contemporary UAP studies is undeniable.  However, his initial perspective misidentified sleep paralysis dreams and hypnotic sessions as veridical testimony for alien encounters (see Rassin et al., 2001 for a definition of dream-reality confusion).  Mack argued abduction experiences were real and therefore not dreams because they are traumatic.  However, he did not reference sleep or dream science and his method of hypnosis has never been validated to recover veridical memories.  Therefore, it appears that Mack hypnotized sleep paralysis victims to adopt their dreams as false memories of traumatic alien encounters, which compelled them to reveal their sexual nightmares as evidence for space aliens (Mack, 1994).  I am concerned that most UAP epistemologies unconsciously incorporate Mack’s dream-reality confusion, bias toward the myth of repressed memory, and tendency toward techniques like support groups and hypnosis that are known to produce false memories.

This ethical concern may be resolved by including the International Association of the Study of Dreams ethical guidelines in the Research Policy Handbook as required for UAP studies researchers.  My professional dreamwork practice is supported by a close reading of their guidelines and a bibliography of research literature especially relevant to ET/NHI encounters, mostly derived from shamanic and anomalous dream literature.  I believe an institutional and peer-reviewed authoritative statement regarding Mack’s methods and their influence on Bigelow, thus contemporary UAP Disclosure narratives, may be necessary to mitigate the risk of harmful false memories caused by Mack’s initial dream-reality confusion.

UAP/NHI Encounters May Be Primarily Intrapsychic Events

I am not yet convinced ET/NHI and UFO/UAP claims regarding objective reality are based on evidence or peer-reviewed research practices.  I extensively studied body marks as physical evidence for alien abduction and dozens of UAP recordings as an integral practice.  While I found no evidence to directly and conclusively support ET or abduction hypotheses, I found extensive evidence that people report strange body marks or sightings of UAPs in association with potent dreams or other powerful intuitions.  If encounters are intrapsychic events, then they may be mediated by the subject’s own mind and not alien mind control.  If UAP researchers do not disclose the objective reality of many UAPs as satellites and ETs as sleep paralysis entities, then UAP studies risks perpetuating a disempowering narrative that may lead to traumatic false memories. Resolution to this concern may be ethics guidelines that integrate skeptical and credulous interpretations of NHI/UAP events.

Risk of Harmful False Memories in Human Subjects

The mainstream understanding of NHI/UAP contact is that experiencer is a term for alien abductee (see Wikipedia definitions), which is explained as the misidentification of sleep paralysis dreams (Blackmore, 1996) and false memories caused by hypnotic suggestion or inadequate interview techniques (Lynn and Kirsch, 1996).  Harvard (see Clancy and McNally) published a series of studies that demonstrated false memories of alien abduction could produce physiological effects like genuine trauma, therefore demonstrating the risk of harmful false memory associated with alien abduction research.  Further, the Harvard studies suggested that alien abductees are likely to be schizotypal and therefore vulnerable to suggestions of magical thinking. Therefore, the mainstream may argue that UAP studies and experiencer research risks traumatic false memories in human subjects, particularly in the SEGRI/WISEN project because of its use of the term experiencer or UAP.

Once again, my concern is abstract and not about an immediate danger because I am not yet resolved in my understanding of the risk. While I agree with the mainstream opinion about false memories and sleep paralysis, I say that dreams are real and that false memories may be true spiritual experiences, therefore I would seek ethical resolution to these concerns that honors both skeptical and credulous perspectives. I am confident that future Anomalous Research Practica and IRB review of SEGRI/WISEN will mitigate risk of false memories. Personally, I need to understand false memory dynamics and their risk before continuing my work and research, as well as see institutional research policies that address this unique risk of UAP studies.  Simple false memory sensitization protocols (see Oberst et al., 2021) or authoritative statements may resolve this ethical concern at an institutional level.

Decentralized Industry of Alien False Memories

It appears that alien abduction research is based upon a decentralized and primarily unconscious process involving several public sectors including academia, media production, experiencer support, and the intelligence community.  A careful reading of Mack’s introduction to Unusual Personal Experiences may reveal the connection of science fiction media, pseudoscientific experiencer hypnosis and support groups, and research communities in the generation of harmful false memories.  An experiencer may respond to a suggestion from the media, then seek hypnosis or support groups, which may generate false memory testimony that is finally harvested by researchers and media producers.  Rainey (2011) described how breaches in research integrity and media production incentivized traumatic false narratives based on alien abduction mythologies.  Esbjörn-Hargens has endorsed a contemporary abductee/experiencer group as a safe space for experiencers, which I would agree with in practice but perhaps not semantics.  I say that the ambiguity of the term experiencer and its history with alien abduction mythologies may cause harmful confusion with the UFO Abduction Syndrome.  While I would also recommend The Experiencer Group, I am concerned that academic UAP studies may unconsciously contribute to a decentralized system of false memory testimony spanning support groups and media production.

I hold a similar concern about named celebrity experiencers and the intersection with intelligence community narratives such as in Chris Bledsoe’s case, which is a primary example for SEGRI/WISEN.  Celebrity cases tend to involve fantastic storytelling that capture attention like trauma, conflict, and appeal to authority/emotion claims.  Whitely Streiber is another primary example of a celebrity-experience whose story of questionable verticality has unquestionably influenced abduction reports of a generation. My concern is based upon the assumption that the NHI/UAP encounter is real, yet also responds to set and setting like a psychedelic trip.  Therefore, the priming factor of named celebrity experiencers or the possibility of being featured by a best-selling abduction researcher may cause human subjects to unconsciously emulate the celebrity-experiencer’s distorted account.

Institutional resolution to this concern may include false memory sensitization measures in human subject interviews that explicitly discuss priming factors of media and celebrity case studies or else within informed consent statements (see Oberst et al., 2021 for examples of false memory education and sensitization).  I imagine that guidelines about claims regarding experiencers could mitigate risk, such as translating “Chris Bledsoe is an experiencer of the phenomenon” into “Chris Bledsoe reports UAP encounters, some of which are identifiable and some are anomalous”. 

Risk of Harm to Researcher

The field of UAP studies may present unique risks to the researcher. Rainey’s (2011) article described two major abduction researchers’ descent into paranoia and corruption.  Contemporary UAP narratives often reference the hitch-hiker effect, which is the increase of paranormal activity in paranormal researchers’ lives.  There is a tendency for conflict within the UAP community regarding the interpretation of the objective status of UAPs.  Additionally, half the stories of human encounters with aliens or NHIs are typically terrifying, confusing, and gruesome. The field is fraught with conspiracy theories, psy-ops, and confusion. The research is often thankless or inspires anger from the experiencer community, such as Susan Clancy’s research on abduction. Finally, there appears to be a tendency toward dream-reality confusion that inspires wild errors of discernment, which may be impactful to the researcher. Mack’s work with Bassett is a prime example, which documented Mack’s inability to discern between veridical testimony and intentionally faked sessions (PBS, 1997).

My research into alien abduction body marks took a toll on my life and spirit from which I am still recovering.  My vocational and ethical crises caused my leave of absence application. I am concerned that an unsupported UAP studies concentration may have a similar impact in other students’ lives.  I believe I am the first student to actively pursue an explicit research focus on ET/NHI contact and therefore my experience is new knowledge.  Esbjörn-Hargens has been helpful and supportive in my process and therefore I am not concerned about the program, but would offer specific recommendations for support of students in anomalous or UAP studies concentrations.  Informed consent of the strange risks of UAP research may be beneficial for anyone considering the concentrations.  Additionally, a peer-support process may be beneficial that would a) provide integral support to researchers and b) periodic review of anomalous discernments or accountability against common UAP studies risks.

UAP Studies May Perpetuate Harmful Confusions

There is general confusion about UAPs and many claims are fantastic.  I am concerned that CIHS-endorsed media about UAPs and experiencer topics may lead to problematic claims, harmful false memories, or general confusion.  In particular, I see general confusion about the ontological status of ET/NHIs and UFO/UAPs.  While it could be the subject of my dissertation, I now say that most contemporary UAP/NHI claims are based upon Mackian epistemologies that confuse the ontological status of sleep paralysis dreams with waking memories.  Mack’s hypnosis was a transpersonal psychology method, but most contemporary claims derive from the confusion that it was a validated psychiatric method to recover veridical memories.  This fallacy is similar to Wilber’s Quadrant Absolutism because it asserts that only waking phase events are real.  Consequently, contemporary UAP narratives are interwoven with fantastic and dreamlike elements, such as the abduction phenomenon.  

I am concerned that CIHS endorsement of UAP studies through media or the INS concentration may perpetuate harmful confusions as a part of an abstract, decentralized, and unconscious industry false memory testimony.  I am confident CIHS will produce UAP studies research that reduces confusion, therefore my concern is regarding UAP studies in general.  In particular, I am skeptical of alien abduction implant research or ontological claims derived from the interpretation of sleep paralysis dreams and hypnosis testimony.  Resolution to this concern may include adding a liability-limiting disclaimer to CIHS-endorsed media and/or authoritative institutional statements regarding potentially harmful confusions related to UAP studies.

Resolution

I intend to resolve my financial and ethical crisis during my leave of absence.  I commit to resolve the risk of harmful false memories associated with the UFO Abduction Syndrome, which I see associated with contemporary UAP Disclosure narratives through Bigelow’s activity and research informed by Mack’s abduction work.  I would see that any institute or researcher influenced by the UFO Abduction Syndrome honors the ethics and epistemology of dreamwork in addition to any other relevant ethical guidelines.  I would also see that experiencers, researchers, and institutes conducting UAP studies be sensitized to the risk of false memories.

I seek institutional resolution to the risk of harmful false memory and dream-reality confusion inherent within UAP or experiencer studies because individual researcher discernment may fail on essential considerations such as if the UAP is a satellite or the sleep paralysis dream is an alien abduction.  Esbjörn-Hargens has made me aware that IRB oversight and my dissertation committee may provide the institutional resolution that I seek.  However, I simply can not afford to continue without a resolution to my ethical impasse, which is why I am taking a leave of absence during which I will secure work to pay tuition and personally process my vocational crisis and disturbing abduction research.

Additionally, I would ask that CIHS consider the following actions to address the risks and concerns I have mentioned:

1. Update Research Policy and Student Handbook 
2. Integrate IASD ethical guidelines for dreamwork and research
3. Informed consent guidelines for human subjects and researchers that include harmful false memory sensitization protocols and unique risks of UAP studies
4. CIHS-endorsed resource article similar to Our Wild Kosmos! that addresses:
5. Influence of UFO Abduction Syndrome through Mack and Bigelow on contemporary UAP studies
6. Disambiguation of legal testimony from transpersonal testimony, i.e., Mack’s hypnosis is transpersonal breathwork not forensic regression hypnosis
7. Authoritative statements regarding potentially harmful confusions such as alien implants, regression hypnosis, sleep paralysis, objective reality of UAPs, etc.
8. Ethical considerations of researchers regarding support groups, therapy methods, testimony for media production, etc.
9. Peer-support group for students and researchers with published minutes that provides:
10. Accountability regarding ontological claims and dream-reality confusion
11. Integral practices to address risks of paranoia, isolation, hitch-hiker, false memory, high strangeness, and other effects associated with UAP studies

Conclusion

I intend to return to CIHS within the UAP and Consciousness Studies concentration and to defend possibly the first accredited dissertation on NHI contact in dreams as formerly defined by the UFO Abduction Syndrome.  I would see the risk of harmful false memory be transformed into the certainty of beneficial intuition, just as I would see the disempowerment of alien abduction myths be transformed into the empowerment of psionic dreaming.  However, I must note that my dreams guide my research, creative practice, and spiritual direction. My dreams have been extremely clear that there is a grave risk of harmful false memories that I must see addressed.  I believe that by raising my concerns in an institutional manner like this, my concerns may inspire their institutional resolution. I have good faith that Esbjörn-Hargens and CIHS will address my ethical concerns to support the INS program and its ground-breaking concentrations.  I would be happy to collaborate with CIHS on the resolution of my concerns during my leave of absence and will continue my dialog with Esbjörn-Hargens.

References

Blackmore, S. (1998). Abduction by Aliens or Sleep Paralysis. Skeptical Inquirer.

Clancy, S. A. (2005). Abducted: How people come to believe they were kidnapped by aliens. Harvard University Press.

Clancy, S. A., McNally, R. J., Schacter, D. L., Lenzenweger, M. F., & Pitman, R. K. (2002). Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens. Journal of abnormal psychology, 111(3), 455.

Cooper, H., Blumenthal, R., & Kean, L. (2017). Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s mysterious U.F.O. program. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

Esbjörn-Hargens, S. (2020). Our wild kosmos! An exo studies exploration of the ontological status of Non-Human Intelligences. Exo Studies Institute. https://whatsupwithufos.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Exo_Studies.pdf 

IASD. (n.d.). Ethics in Dreamwork and teaching Dreamwork. International Association for the Study of Dreams. https://asdreams.org/ethics

Loftus, E. F., & Ketcham, K. (1996). The myth of repressed memory: False memories and allegations of sexual abuse. Macmillan.

Lynn, S. J., & Kirsch, I. I. (1996). Alleged alien abductions: False memories, hypnosis, and fantasy proneness. Psychological Inquiry, 7(2), 151-155.

McNally, R. J., & Clancy, S. A. (2005). Sleep paralysis, sexual abuse, and space alien abduction. Transcultural psychiatry, 42(1), 113-122.

McNally, R. J., Lasko, N. B., Clancy, S. A., Macklin, M. L., Pitman, R. K., & Orr, S. P. (2004). Psychophysiological responding during script-driven imagery in people reporting abduction by space aliens. Psychological Science, 15(7), 493-497.

Nash, R. A., Wade, K. A., Garry, M., Loftus, E. F., & Ost, J. (2017). Misrepresentations and flawed logic about the prevalence of false memories. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31(1), 31-33.

Oeberst, A., Wachendörfer, M. M., Imhoff, R., & Blank, H. (2021). Rich false memories of autobiographical events can be reversed. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(13), e2026447118.

Otgaar, H., Howe, M. L., Patihis, L., Merckelbach, H., Lynn, S. J., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Loftus, E. F. (2019). The return of the repressed: The persistent and problematic claims of long-forgotten trauma. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(6), 1072-1095.

PBS (1997). NOVA Online/Kidnapped by UFOs/John Mack. Public Broadcasting Station. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aliens/johnmack.html  

Rainey, C. (2011). The Priests of High Strangeness. Paratopia. https://www.carolrainey.com/pdf/ParatopiaMag_vol1_1-15-11.pdf 

Rassin, E., Merckelbach, H., & Spaan, V. (2001). When dreams become a royal road to confusion: Realistic dreams, dissociation, and fantasy proneness. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 189(7), 478-481.