I met the author of this book when she and I were invited (along with others) to speak at an International UFO Conference over in Carrick On Shannon Ireland last year (2007) I sat fascinated as I listened to Yvonne’s lecture on her first hand experiences with UFO abductees and was amazed at the power point slides that she put up on screen each one showing in graphic detail the small grey ‘beings’ as they poked and prodded their helpless victims. And that’s the thing, the helplessness that UFO abductees find themselves in when they are suddenly catapulted into the ‘Twilight Zone’ (for want of a better word)

There are many hundreds of people spread out throughout the world who are involved in UFO abduction research and a good number of those are doing so through hypnotherapy and using it as a tool to hopeful retrieve any hidden subconscious memory of their abduction event that might, just might, help to explain if it really happened at all or if it is all in the mind. Having looked at this subject myself for over 20 years, I am of the firm belief that we are indeed somehow interacting with some form of non human intelligence, now what exactly that ‘alien’ intelligence agenda is, is of course open to question and interpretation.

Yvonne initially had absolutely no interest in matters pertaining to UFOs and aliens, she of course had heard about it (as we all do) through TV and sensationalised press reports but initially dismissed these reports as over active imaginations, that was however, before he mother handed her a book to read entitled, “The Tujunga Canyon Contacts written by Anne Druffel. This book described the use of hypnosis to unlock the memories of two women who shared a UFO experience. However, it wasn’t so much the actual UFO incident that intrigued Yvonne, is was more to do with the use of hypnosis at getting at what could be termed the truth, or trying to explore the truth, whatever that truth may be. This set Yvonne off on a one woman crusade where she learned that hypnosis was not just about making people act and quack like a duck, that it had its more beneficial purposes. She perused the writings of the American Medical Association and poured over as much information as she could get on the use and workings of hypnosis and the mind. It wasn’t long before she found herself enrolling in a local hypnosis class of which she graduated from.

Not long after she graduated from her hypnosis school, Yvonne and her mother attended a Whole Life Expo in Pasadena California which amoungst other things, had aspects on hypnosis and UFOs. It was during her visit to this Conference that she encounterd and listened to one Budd Hopkins who himself was making a name for himself in the world of UFO abductions. Back in Yvonne’s home town she started her own hypnosis classes which brought forward a number of local people with ailments from heavy smoking and weight problems, each who looked to Yvonne to do something about. Whilst working with these people, she began to realise that a number of the people that she was working with, put down their problems to a UFO experience. This was puzzling to Yvonne and set her out on a course that would change her life.

Soon Yvonne was working with what we would term as ‘UFO Abductees’ and this book highlights but a few of her more startling cases that she found herself involved with. What I’d like to do now is basically discuss some of the points that Yvonne makes in her book because as we’ll see, some points have a relevance to one major Scottish case that I worked on some years ago.

Are ‘aliens’ clever? I say this because on one case that Yvonne refers to, the Laci Case, the lady in question had been scuba diving when she was abducted and on board this craft (or whatever it was) the aliens were puzzled as they looked down and prodded her wet suit thinking that it was part of her ‘skin’! Yvonne makes the clever recall about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction when the aliens found out that Barney’s teeth could be removed and Betty’s couldn’t (so much for intelligent aliens) It’s small things like this, that puzzle me as a researcher that aliens can be so damm stupid. If they are so highly advanced to us why get something like this so far wrong or not be able to understand it, it just beggars belief. Staying with this case for a moment, Laci explained to Yvonne that as she came out of hypnosis her abdomen was very painful which Yvonne explains that the mind can retain physical memory pain and bring it back into the conscious after hypnosis (but generally for a short period of time, in other words, the Abductee can feel the pain that they encountered during their abduction) Now, it’s this pain, the abdominal pain that one of the Scottish UFO abductees that I worked with, Garry Wood, experienced. He related to me that he felt extreme abdominal pain like his insides were all twisting and turning each and every way like a large hand was inside her stomach pulling and pushing his guts each and every way. This abdominal paid is very consistent with other UFO abductees.

Moving on to another of Yvonne’s case studies, a lady called Mary, I again came across similar incidents to my own Scottish UFO Abduction case (The A70 Case) Mary related a scene that she recalled under hypnosis when she herself had been abducted into a UFO where she observed a number of ‘people’ encased in some kind of glass or Perspex room which had mist or a fog swirling all around inside of it. These people were naked and strapped to a chair. Not only did she see the small grey ‘aliens’ but there were a few taller ones in there as well, (exactly what other UFO abductees claim, including Garry and Colin from the Scottish case) Further on in this case, Mary makes this quite amazing statement, and I quote it in its entirety.

“The reason they care about our behaviour, is that it will affect them too. They live here but not well and not comfortably. I get the impression that they don’t even exist on a day to day level in the same dimension on this planet as us. They rotate into our world as needed and out into their own dimension here, in which they are barely hanging on. I get the feeling that they can’t endure our sunshine, our gravity our geomagnetic fields our high octane emotions for long. They’ve managed some kind of half existence here. Whatever we’re doing that will have systematic global impacts on us and the economies which we depend will make their tenuous existence even less tenable, even impossible”

Mary goes on to say that she gets the feeling that the ‘aliens’ are out to manipulate our genetic material to create bodies that are fully adaptable to ‘their planet’

Mary goes on to describe even further what she thinks is behind all this (UFO Abductions) but I won’t spoil it here by telling you, you’ll have to buy Yvonne’s book to find out.

In another case study in Yvonne’s book, again there is a similar thing to what happened in the Scottish A70 UFO Abduction case that I worked on. One lady Katie Campbell, during her abduction, remembered being placed in what looked like a dentist’s chair, a contoured chair, now that is exactly how Colin Wright, the other gentleman in the A70 case mentioned being placed in.

Another puzzling case in Yvonne’s book refers to John who was abducted from his car back in 1980, during and after John’s hypnosis, he realised that things were not so cut and dried in our lives as we might care to imagine, that perhaps our real parents come from the stars and that like kids who are adopted never really knowing who they’re real parents were, set off on a crusade to get to the truth and find out who they’re real parents are, and in a sense, he related to Yvonne, I too feel like that. And that’s the thing ladies and gentlemen, the thing that brings us all to ask the question, how did WE evolve here on this planet, did we come from the apes as Darwin would have you believe, or were we the result of some intergalactic experiment that somehow is ‘still going on’ Questions questions.

Yvonne’s book holds many similar Abductee stories from the implants to the bright lights to the examination rooms etc etc. There is a lot in this book that I’m sure many abductees can relate to. There are of course differences as well and it would appear that no two abductions are the same, there does appear to be differences, and that’s another thing. If it were all the same wee guys doing the abductions, then you would expect (possibly) the abduction to follow the same pattern, but they don’t, so does this mean that we are dealing with different alien races? A lot of researchers would say so. One chap in the book Alfonso stated during his hypnosis session with Yvonne, that the aliens showed him gigantic earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanoes going off at all points of the planet earth, the whole world that we currently know is going to be changed forever but after thousands upon thousands of years, it will all settle back down, however not as we know it, but back to tropical forests etc. Alfonso did not want to see anymore of this by his alien captors and had to look away.

Yvonne explains to the reader in her book that sometimes she ‘does’ ask ‘leading questions’ to her patient under hypnosis. Now we all know that hypnotherapist should not be asking leading questions, but as Yvonne explains, there is a time and place to do so, which usually brings forward even more information that wouldn’t have been gained in the normal way of asking. It’s the understanding on when and how to se the leading question that is important.

One of the most illuminating case studies in this book is the double abduction of brothers Jesse and John. God almighty what a case this is. There are implants, (of which photographs are shown in this book) and there is some disturbing and alarming testimonies coming from both brothers. However, what I found most intriguing as I’m sure the reader will, is ‘after’ the UFO abduction John found himself deeply interested in inventions and coming up with ideas way out of his box. So much so, that when he put into the USA patent office of a invention that he had, an Ellipsoid Generator he was told in no uncertain terms that his request for a patent had been denied for a period of six months until the Government officials looked over his patent to see if it breached any secrecy orders !!! He never did get the permission so what he did was to……………Well read the book and find out.

Like many other UFO abductees, John had visions of impending catastrophes that would happen in the near future and his vision of two twin towers crashing to the ground, well sadly we all know what happened there.

All in all then I found this a most enjoyable read, and although the vast majority of it was very similar to other UFO abductions, there were enough differences and similarities to my own Scottish case to make me sit up and take note. Yvonne’s journey from a hypnotherapy student to dealing with traumatic case studies on UFO abductions has shown her that the world we live in is surely more stranger than we can ever imagine. Is it all in our mind, can mankind share the same global psychosis (if that is indeed what it is)? What’s going on? For me as a writer and researcher, I would say that we are indeed dealing with some kind of alien intelligence, that hypnosis, if used properly, can bring forth recall from events that would seem to show us that what the witness claimed is real.

Mankind has a right to question, you the reader have a right to know what’s going on, what could be even more alarming than the cases in Yvonne’s book, might be the fact that the Governments of this world know more than they are letting on when it comes to UFO abductions. We need more books of this nature we need to show the world that mankind, is not the only living breathing organism in the universe, that we share that universe with beings more intelligent than us but more distressingly do not always have our best interest’s at heart.

TITLE: Chosen. AUTHOR: Yvonne R Smith. PUBLISHER: Backstage Entertainment, 26239 Senator Avenue, Harbor City, CA, 90710, United States Of America. www.backstage.entertainer.net PRICE: $19:95.

Reviewed by Malcolm Robinson, SPI (England) malckyspi@yahoo.com

Malcolm can be contacted at www.myspace.com/malcolmrobinsonresearcher

To contact Yvonne Smith: www.ysmith.com

Newsletter 26

Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial

26 April, 2008

http://www.simonsingh.net

1. Trick or Treatment?

2. Woodstock for Skeptics

3. Science Museum Signing & Lectures

4. Free Polish editions of Big Bang

5. Competition Winner

6. Puzzle Competition

1. Trick or Treatment?

After two years of work, “Treatment or Treatment?” was published this week and already it has caused a bit of fuss. You may have noticed that my co-author and I wrote a letter to The Times newspaper criticising Prince Charles for publishing a misleadingly rose-tinted pamphlet on alternative medicine. This sparked a rather heated response from homeopaths and other alternative therapists. Here are links to our original letter and the accompanying news article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/one

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/two

In fact, we actually dedicated the book to Prince Charles, because he is the world’s most outspoken advocate of alternative medicine and he has previously asked for the evidence relating to these therapies. My co-author and I have been through the evidence, just as His Royal Highness requested, but unfortunately the results are not very flattering for practitioners of alternative medicine.

Before I get another batch of angry emails from alternative therapists, I should point out two things. First, my co-author, Edzard Ernst, is the world’s first professor of alternative medicine, so we really have taken a proper look at all the available scientific evidence. There have been literally thousands of scientific investigations into alternative medicine and our conclusions are based on the results from these studies. Second, we are not entirely negative about alternative medicine. When we encountered a therapy that has something to offer patients then said this clearly in the book, but unfortunately such therapies were in the minority.

Edzard and I have simply tried to help the public navigate the world of alternative medicine by explaining which therapies work, which ones do not, and which ones are downright dangerous. I will discuss some of the evidence regarding alternative medicine in a future newsletter, but for the time being you might like to read something that I wrote for the Guardian newspaper to tie in with Chiropractic Awareness Week:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/19/health

2. Woodstock for Skeptics

Last week, the world’s most famous skeptic, James Randi, visited London. I was delighted to be invited to speak as part of a series of lectures in his honour. There is a charming account of the evening at:

http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=1326

I recorded my own favourite recollection of the evening in a column for The Times newspaper. “On Saturday night, perhaps for the first time in history, there was a round of applause at the announcement of a hospital closure. I was speaking at a seminar organised by Skeptics in the Pub, and I had just explained that the Tunbridge Wells Homoeopathic Hospital is due to close next year because of a huge drop in the number of referrals. Nobody in the audience was belittling the suffering of those patients who would be deprived of homoeopathic treatment, but instead they were endorsing the fact that the money saved would be spent on more effective treatments.”
You can read the whole article at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/three

3. Science Museum Signing & Lectures

It is very short notice, but if you are in London today then I will be signing books at Waterstones bookshop at the Science Museum (020-7942 4481, London SW7) from 3.30pm until 4pm. Please come along and say hello if you are in the neighbourhood. And, of course, the museum has free admission, so you can check out the Making of the Modern World gallery or explore the revamped Launch Pad, which is full of interactive exhibits.

In particular, if you are an alternative therapist who has been annoyed by ‘Trick or Treatment’ or any of my recent articles, then please come along for a chat and we can talk about the evidence for and against alternative medicine.

I will provide more information soon, but I will be speaking at the Hay Book Festival on May 24, the Bristol Festival of Ideas on May 21 and at the Edinburgh Book Festival on August 10. In the first two lectures, I will be speaking with my co-author Professor Ernst.

4. Free Polish editions of Big Bang

Big Bang, my history of cosmology, is being translated into various languages and I have just received the Polish editions. If you live in the UK and if you read Polish or know someone who reads Polish, then just send an email to and tell me your address. I will despatch copies to the first six emails that I receive, so if you don’t receive a copy of ‘Wielki Wybuch’ then it means that you were not quite quick enough. (Unfortunately I cannot extend this offer outside the UK because of the high cost of postage.)

6. Competition Winner

In the last newsletter, I asked: “Which children’s book touches on mathematics and has Milo as its central character?” I thought that the only answer was “The Phantom Toll Booth”, but it turns out that there is another book that fits the bill, namely “The Mathematical Parrot”. Hence, there are two winners. Nik Whitehead in Iceland wins a copy of “The Great Escape” by Natalie Haynes and Anna Johnston in Devon wins a copy of Marcus Chown’s new children’s book, “Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devel”.

7. Puzzle Competition

Which famous medical TV series had an episode call “Trick or Treatment”?

Send your answer to – put your answer in the subject header and your address in the body of the email. The closing date for entries is April 30. One of the correct entries will win a copy of the new children’s book “Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devel” by the renowned science writer Marcus Chown.
I would like to finish with a big thank you to everyone who emailed me after my last newsletter and welcomed me back from my long silence. I am sorry that I am unable to answer all your emails, but they are much appreciated. Many, many thanks.

Cheerio,

Simon.