Monday, September 19, 2011

Television: Penn & Teller's Bullshit: Alien Abductions

Penn & Teller's Bullshit: Alien Abductions
Season 1: Episode 3 "Alien Abductions"

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Penn & Teller's series did an interesting series on Alien Abductions. However, the information on the subject
was mostly taken from a convention known as the "Bay Area UFO Expo". As with most conventions, the attendees & subject matter are very questionable. One thing I do agree on is this....most of these conventions attract Merchants, Contactees, and New Agers and is more of a Social Club than anything else. As i stated before... Alien Abductions ....are abductions!!! Not a "friendly hello" or we come in peace..... it is a kidnapping, home invasion, rape, and aggravated assault. Contactees are the misguided ones who embrace being victimized. New Agers are a bother too... they seem to stress to much that the aliens are here to help us.... or that they are messengers. There are some aspects which do have merit, but many fall by the wayside when they start chucking their snake oils.  

Sadly even the two professionals there are questionable. One is an author whose credential are... well a storyteller/researcher. The other is a medical doctor. The storyteller, well everything he said is questionable... but the hybrid bloodline is plausible... especially when you take into account that the abduction phenomena has been going about for 1,000's of years within many cultures speaking about hybrids. The medical doctor...his stuff is also highly plausible. The debunker they had did put forth some reasonable alternatives, but what about the instances that don't fall under explainable theories? Myself there have been implants as well...in odd places. I tried to figure where theses came from reasonably and gather as much alternate explanations. Same things with odd injuries at night. Scratches, minor cuts, etc can be explained away... but bruising, burns, punctures are way different.

Now they also had someone comments that people are impressionable and will see things that they have scene in dramatizations. That can be true, but most people see these things before that. Plus here are wide variations of the number of species people have encounters, also some consistencies as well. All though we are all impressionable... if we are independently seeing the same thing... I think that means there is a really good chance we saw it!

Now as far as the alien device that P&T provided.... they are forgetting a crucial fact. It's overall design.
Yes the device that used is for stimulation, but the shape is something that allows for insertion. If you look at the thorax abdomen of many egg laying insect, you will notice the bed like appendage. Even our large intestine is like that, as it allows the tune to easily push object through it.It may be bead as such as it can be flexible and allow slow insertion of implants.

Now the hypnotic regression.... one things I noticed was the patients right away as they did not look 100% healthy. Many looked like they suffered from sort of mental disorder or physical impairment, which at the end were proven true. What is worse, is that many suffered from these mental problems prior to their abductions.
Secondly the professional nature of the therapist came into question. As the debunkers noted, she was leading them on. If you are a hypnotist you are an observer, not a participant. Many of the question direct were too specific. A good observer should let things play out at first, asking you to describe what going on.... "Tell me what you see/hear/feeling".  Although they do touch upon missing time.... it is not normal. Falling asleep is one thing or zoning out... but missing time is something way different. Likewise sleep paralysis, I am glad that they did distinguish that sleep paralysis is a biological mechanism that can happen. However, that does not explain we we see things.... and if it is a natural occurring mechanism it does lead to the conclusion that it can be induced by artificial means!!!

Overall the show was informative as to the hoaxes and scams that goes on..... it exposes stuff that are highly questionable. It is sad though that they did not do a program based upon scientific & plausible theoretical evidence. Either way, I appreciate them as entertainers and people who started a dialogue up.