In the almost ten years since the publication of Budd Hopkins’ last book, the landmark abduction classic Intruders, his reputation as a researcher and author has risen to the point where he is routinely called the "world’s foremost expert on alien abduction." While he modestly refuses to discuss either his fame or his relative importance in the UFO research community, the publication of his latest book, Witnessed, The True Story Of The Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions (Pocket Books, 1996) can only enhance his already enormous stature in the field.
But Hopkins said he never planned it that way.
"I never felt from the beginning," Hopkins said, "that I was going to write books on UFOs for an occupation. My basic reason for writing each of the three books was that I had discovered aspects of the phenomenon that I felt absolutely needed to be made public. And when I finished and published Missing Time [Hopkins’ first book, 1981], I had discovered at that point certain issues such as the idea that abductions were extremely widespread, because people don’t necessarily remember all of it. Which was a very different view than we had say after the Hill and the Pascagoula and the Travis Walton cases, where the person remembered a great deal without hypnosis.
"But when I found that most people remembered virtually nothing," Hopkins continued, "I realized that it was presumably then a very widespread phenomenon. I also discovered and wrote about ‘screen memories,’ which until that time I don’t think had been known or discovered or written about. And I discovered the issue of physical marks after abductions, the scars. And, very importantly, the fact that it was a repeat experience, that it didn’t happen necessarily just once. All those things were so important that I felt they required a book. And then I did nothing about it and I felt I wasn’t going to do anything more until or if there was some other major discovery."
But in spite of his sense that he’d said it all, another project eventually suggested itself to Hopkins. The result was the bestselling Intruders, which broke new ground and shed new light on the phenomenon.
"What I wrote about in Intruders," Hopkins said, "is the whole gynecological, genetic focus-the reproductive focus of the UFO phenomenon-which is of course of extraordinary importance. And that required the second book. And then I had no intention to write a third-only if something came up of equal importance."
Witnessed, that third book, is an extremely complex story of alien abduction, real-life political intrigue and unrequited love that many agree could be turned into a truly wonderful suspense movie. It is also very hard to summarize, but perhaps the copy from the dust jacket will serve to do so.
"In New York City, on November 30, 1989, at approximately 3:00 am, several witnesses, including a major world political leader, saw-and later independently corroborated this shocking event. Accompanied by three small alien figures, Linda Cortile, a married mother of two, was seen emerging from an apartment building window twelve stories above the ground. Suspended within a blue light, Linda and her captors were lifted into a large reddish-orange glowing UFO, which then moved off in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
"The presence of numerous and influential eyewitnesses to the abductions shatters all previous patterns of UFO encounters. But when Linda Cortile first reported her abduction, Hopkins conducted a thorough investigation, including a hypnosis session, and concluded that there was nothing unique about the incident among the hundreds he has studied. That assessment changed dramatically when Hopkins later received a letter in which two men, identified as New York City police officers, described sitting helplessly in a car under the FDR Drive and watching three ‘creatures’ escort a woman into a reddish- orange glowing oval hovering in the sky. Hopkins sensed he was now on the verge of a major breakthrough in providing evidence of the reality of UFO abductions.
"But the three men’s identities remained a mystery. Unwilling to meet with Hopkins, they continued to contact him through letters and an audiocassette recording. The startling connections eventually revealed between Linda and one of these men are perhaps the most remarkable aspects of this case.
"In the following months, three more witnesses came forward. Two gave vivid descriptions of a bright red object in the sky, seen near the Brooklyn Bridge-but from two different locations in the city. The third witness told in dramatic detail the events that occurred as she saw the UFO and the floating figures from the bridge itself. Her haunting drawings, which independently corroborate descriptions related by other participants, plus Linda’s memories, retrieved under hypnosis, appear for the first time in Witnessed.
"While certain facts reported here suggest the aliens’ motives may be altruistic, others point toward a systematic program of genetic study and experimentation on human beings. Whatever the aliens’ motives, the details of this case-from an inexplicable metallic object implanted in Linda’s body to the independent witnesses and their verified accounts of the abduction-challenge all preconceptions about UFOs and alien abductions. The evidence in Witnessed is too credible, too comprehensive, and too powerful for any individual or government to ignore."
Now wasn’t that simple?
Hopkins talked about his need to write a third book.
"In Witnessed, I had not only the issue of a witnessed abduction," Hopkins said, "but the idea that it suggested at least a tentative alien involvement in trying to shape or affect human politics. Plus the other long-term alien involvement in human lives, what I call the Mickey/Baby Ann phenomenon. [more about that later] And so that demanded a book. And I’m not going to write a fourth book unless something else turns up in my research that requires further exploration and publication."
But back to the story Witnessed tells.
"I would say it does elude any kind of short analysis," Hopkins said. "I have never dealt with as complicated a series of events. Neither of the other books that I’ve written had nearly as many individuals and witnesses involved in the same case. The inter-locking pieces of this case are infinitely more complex and numerous than they were in either of the earlier books. I just simply say at the outset that one of the most important aspects of this book is the fact that, in this one case at least, it would seem that the UFO occupants are deliberately showing off and trying to-by abducting someone in full view of an important political figure, perhaps several important political figures and other witnesses, peripheral witnesses-they were taking the most overt step that they have yet taken, so far as I know, in terms of affecting the way the abduction and UFO phenomenon is viewed by the world."
And there were also important events taking place on a more personal level.
"Just as the public side of this event," Hopkins said, "the November 30, 1989, witnessed abduction is of extraordinary importance, just as important are all the interpersonal and much more subtle involvements of alien intelligence in human lives over a long-term period that the case revealed."
One such more "personal" event happens in a scene on the beach near Linda Cortile’s apartment. Cortile begins to experience something Hopkins calls "co-opting" in which Cortile’s will comes under the physical and mental control of the aliens. It resembles the familiar science-fiction cliche, "The aliens took over my body."
Hopkins agreed with that assessment.
"Exactly, exactly," he said. "No doubt about it. And it sounds that way. Of course, it’s a basic component of paranoia for a lot of people. You know, ‘The gods made me do it’ or ‘Satan made me do it,’ or whatever. ‘The voices made me do it.’ But the strange thing is that there’s this tremendous remorse afterwards. And a tremendous sense of helplessness that a person was taken over. But this is extremely widespread and I think we’re going to hear more and more cases. I never had a case quite like it, though, until Linda."
Another form of alien involvement on a personal level is something Hopkins calls the "Mickey/Baby Ann phenomenon." It involves a pairing off of two human subjects in a "bonding environment," generally described as a blindingly white location that is clearly under the aliens’ control. Linda Cortile recalls under hypnosis an experience that begins for her as a little girl and continues into her young adulthood; she remembers being taken repeatedly to meet with a boy a few years older whom she recalls in her conscious waking hours as an imaginary friend she meets in her dreams.
The older boy, who later verifies her story as an adult, is in fact "Richard," one of the political figure’s body guards who witnessed the abduction of Linda that starts the events rolling. When Richard sees Linda as an adult, he feels an instant familiarity with her, as well as strong romantic feelings for her that baffle him until he also recalls the same childhood "bonding" experience.
The aliens apparently brought Linda and Richard together repeatedly throughout their early lives for some purpose known only to the abductors themselves, and then arranged the circumstances that brought them together later as adults with no conscious memory of their having been "bonded" together as children.
The emotional complications that result are a complex part of an already complicated story. Hopkins says the phenomenon, which has turned up in other cases since the Cortile/Richard affair, can have both good and bad results.
"Right now, believe it or not," Hopkins said, "one couple who met in this bizarre way have recently gotten married and seem happily married. This happened very recently. So, we do have a positive outcome. We have other cases where there’s an enormous degree of ongoing sadness, however. So, I guess it depends a lot on the person’s age and situation and marital status when they finally discover one another in the real world. I suspect this is much more widespread than we thought."
But why do the aliens need this particular kind of psychological testing? How does it serve them to pair people off and put them through the "bonding" process?
Hopkins said he could only offer guesses for an answer.
"Obviously," Hopkins said, "when you speculate as to alien motives and what they need and so forth, you’re always on shaky ground. But, as I say, in knowing what we know about the reproductive patterns here, what may be genetic engineering of some sort, and certainly the production of hybrids, the thing always to be remembered is that human beings are not fruit flies. And it takes generations for changes to take place. Perhaps this is a way of speeding up the process. Who knows? It’s certainly a way in which they could learn by observation how human beings interact from the earliest time of their becoming acquainted with one another."
The story Hopkins tells in Witnessed also involves a great deal of human drama separate from the presence of the aliens. As the story slowly pieces itself together, the political intrigue alone is enough to rivet anyone to the book’s pages.
When Hopkins was asked if he ever felt like he had stepped into some kind of suspense movie and that there was no way out, he replied, "I myself didn’t. I definitely think that Linda and her family absolutely did. I saw the change physically in Linda and her husband. The edginess, the worry and so forth. I was aware I suppose that I could have been potentially at risk, but so long as I maintained as cordial a relationship as I did with ‘Richard’ and ‘Dan’ [the political figure’s other security agent], I felt safe. I did my best to keep them calm, cool and collected under the circumstances because these men were going through the tortures of the damned themselves.
"I think that one of the interesting points to remember," Hopkins continued, "is that all intelligence operates on a need-to-know basis. And here were two men, highly placed in their intelligence/security roles, but who had previously been told nothing about the UFO phenomenon at all. It was as new to them as it was to the officers at Roswell when the thing crashed in their midst. They had to improvise from the beginning and they had no information to go by, so they were in the same boat as the rest of us were. Actually worse off in certain senses."
The ongoing political/espionage events were in such constant flux that it was difficult to complete the writing process. Just as the story seemed to reach its conclusion, something new would happen.
"It always went in fits and starts," Hopkins said, "but there would be a number of incidents happening quickly and falling on one another. And then there would be sort of a lull. But there have been incidents since the book was completed, and a number of incidents which had occurred in the year and a half or so before I ended the essential chronology of the book. But it just has to stop someplace. I found a convenient place to stop and that was it. There will be more going on, though."
But Hopkins prefers not to go into what those more recent events are.
"I’m not prepared to go into any new material," he said, "for the reason that I’ve learned not to bring up any material, no matter how important, unless I’m prepared to bring it up very fully and completely. In other words, unless I’m ready to sit down and write a thirty or forty page article on particular incidents, I’m just going to have to be quiet about it until such a time as I do have the energy to bring things more up to date."
When pressed about anything new on the major political figure, including whether Hopkins still thought it was possible for the world leader to come forward, Hopkins said, "Well, after all, I do not know him in any intimate way. The extent of my knowledge about him on a first-hand basis is all in the book for people to judge. They can guess how well I know him based on what they read there. We have had the one meeting and it’s very hard for me to read another’s mind and their intentions. I would say that anyone who advances very far in the world of politics and diplomacy learns how to play the cards very, very close. And I would say this is such a man. I still profoundly hope that he will come forward. That’s where it stands. The ball is in his court."
In the absence of those kinds of public admissions by individuals like Hopkins’ political figure, there is always the struggle to refute the critics of the UFO research process, that group of skeptics called the debunkers. Like all researchers, Hopkins has non-believing critics constantly attacking both his work and the witnesses he works with. With or without the new book, according to Hopkins, there will always be negative voices.
"You see," Hopkins said, "the book doesn’t have to exist. The debunkers will not read it most likely, and they will not do anything more than they’ve already done, which is simply to say, ‘This didn’t happen because it can’t have happened.’ That’s the basic skeptical line. If we assume a very large number of Americans and people around the world accept the reality of the UFO phenomenon, there’s also another enormous group that is extremely intrigued by it. And, of course, there’s a smaller group that would never accept it even if it happened to them. But the large, middle group that’s intrigued but not persuaded that this is going on may find this book shoving them into the ‘persuaded’ category. I think that’s one of the hopes I have for Witnessed. I majorly hope that this will persuade some of the other witnesses who were there that night to come forward, and some of the people who I’ve dealt with in the book who still have withheld their names and public statements, that it will move them to come forward, too. That’s a basic hope."
In the meantime, Hopkins must fend for himself as best he can.
"Certainly," Hopkins said, "one becomes a target. I feel like the guy in the old story who was being ridden out of town on a rail after being tarred and feathered. And he said, ‘If it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, I’d be very upset.’ "
And Hopkins himself has borne the brunt of the most recent attacks.
"I think the debunking attacks were aimed at me," Hopkins said, "rather than at Linda. Linda was the medium through which the attacks came. And I think they’re obviously going to continue. No one’s going to leave off. It’s just what’s to be expected. But they’re going to have a helluva time trying to build a case in the light of the material that’s been presented."
But there is also someone to thank in Hopkins’ struggle to learn the truth about the UFO phenomenon.
"I feel extremely grateful," Hopkins said, "for the support that I’ve had in the UFO research community through all of the attacks that have been launched on me and on all the various witnesses in this case. I feel a great deal of gratitude that people have waited to read the whole story before making up their minds. And that support has been a rock to rest on for me which has been extremely helpful. So, my gratitude is extended and hearfelt."
The controversy surrounding Witnessed will doubtless go on for many years to come, as will the chain of events the book recounts. One can only hope the ultimate answers to the questions the book raises will not be long in coming, for the sake of both the participants in the drama of Witnessed and for us, the curious readers, endlessly stumbling from one dark mystery to another.