10-18-2007, 12:29 AM
from Cabinet of Wonders
Alien abduction researcher David Jacobs has written two books, Secret Life and The Threat, in which he details the repeated failings of a system he arranged for his alleged abductees to videotape those hours they were asleep, the hours they said they were being abducted. What problems did Jacobs have with this arrangement?
So, here's the problem. As a tireless abduction researcher you are only too aware that teams of spindly grey aliens are repeatedly snatching dozens (if not hundreds) of honest citizens from their beds every night and subjecting them to unspeakable procedures on board huge spaceships. But those pesky skeptics keep challenging you to come up with evidence to prove your case. What do you do? How do you catch those dastardly ETs in the act?
Well, actually it's quite simple. You videotape them. Or rather, you provide your abductees with a camera to plug into their VCR so that they can leave it recording while they sleep. Sooner or later, those bug-eyed freaks are bound to come floating through the walls in a blaze of light. And when they do, it will all have been captured for posterity.
But, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men are oftimes ruined by the nefarious cunning of our Reticulan Overlords. Or something like that. So, it should come as no surprise that when researcher David Jacobs asked six of his regular abductees to videotape themselves every night, he found himself outwitted at every turn. Here, as told in his 1992 book Secret Life, is how things panned out:
Abductee 1: 'Melissa'
Melissa had the camera equipment set up for several nights before she was abducted. Unfortunately, that particular night she had gone to bed very late and did not wake until noon the next day. The videotape ran out at 6am, and - wouldn't you just know it - "research revealed that the abduction took place sometime between 6:00 and 12:00".
"I considered this was a near miss and the taping continued," Jacobs writes. Weeks later, Melissa was abducted again. Of course, it had to be on the night she slept downstairs on the couch "to get away from the noise of her neighbours arguing upstairs," now didn't it?
Abductee 2: Karen Morgan
"A few months later Karen Morgan agreed to use a video camera and a similar pattern began to emerge," Jacobs tells us. Indeed, it did. The aliens cleverly waited until Karen "forgot to set up the camera" before abducting her. They also abducted her when she was away visiting relatives or sleeping on a friend's yacht. After one abduction from her bedroom, Karen noticed that "the camera wires had been pulled from the back of the VCR". On another occasion, she woke to find that the VCR had been turned off, though she distinctly remembered activating it before she went to bed.
"More abductees wanted to use the camera," recalls Jacobs. "And as we gained more experience with it, we began to notice that the video equipment would sometimes mysteriously malfunction or be turned off - and an abduction would follow. Unusual power outages that affected only the immediate surroundings (sometimes not even other rooms) would cause the VCR to go off and an abduction would follow."
Abductee 3: Unnamed Female
Abductee no 3 "felt the urge at 5:30am... to get out of bed, walk over to the VCR and turn it off... all of which was recorded on tape. She later remembered seeing Small Beings who were standing just outside of camera range directing her to do it".
Abductee 4: Unnamed Female
Another unnamed abductee "felt very nervous one night and had the irresistible urge to get out of bed... and sleep in her parent's room. As soon as she was away from the camera, she was abducted".
Abductee 5: Unnamed Female
Abductee no 5 "had the urge to go to bed three hours before she normally did. An abduction took place before the VCR was programmed to go on."
Jacobs does not reveal what happened to the sixth abductee, but presumably their efforts to videotape their abductions were equally fruitless. In his 1998 book, The Threat, he briefly returns to the topic, observing:
Presumably, these abductees were all being abducted by the same species of alien (if not by the exact same away team). And surely once those aliens had realised that abductees were using video surveillance, they would have formulated a strategy to deal with it? Surely the bigwig in charge of the abduction programme would have circulated a memo to his underlings outlining the correct course of action to take? I imagine it reading something like this:
It all seems rather haphazard - if not downright incompetent. You know, for a moment there I really thought that we might be being invaded by "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic". But no - it's even worse than that. We're being invaded by morons.
http://www.wunderkabinett.co.uk/damndata...a-Shy.html
Alien abduction researcher David Jacobs has written two books, Secret Life and The Threat, in which he details the repeated failings of a system he arranged for his alleged abductees to videotape those hours they were asleep, the hours they said they were being abducted. What problems did Jacobs have with this arrangement?
So, here's the problem. As a tireless abduction researcher you are only too aware that teams of spindly grey aliens are repeatedly snatching dozens (if not hundreds) of honest citizens from their beds every night and subjecting them to unspeakable procedures on board huge spaceships. But those pesky skeptics keep challenging you to come up with evidence to prove your case. What do you do? How do you catch those dastardly ETs in the act?
Well, actually it's quite simple. You videotape them. Or rather, you provide your abductees with a camera to plug into their VCR so that they can leave it recording while they sleep. Sooner or later, those bug-eyed freaks are bound to come floating through the walls in a blaze of light. And when they do, it will all have been captured for posterity.
But, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men are oftimes ruined by the nefarious cunning of our Reticulan Overlords. Or something like that. So, it should come as no surprise that when researcher David Jacobs asked six of his regular abductees to videotape themselves every night, he found himself outwitted at every turn. Here, as told in his 1992 book Secret Life, is how things panned out:
Abductee 1: 'Melissa'
Melissa had the camera equipment set up for several nights before she was abducted. Unfortunately, that particular night she had gone to bed very late and did not wake until noon the next day. The videotape ran out at 6am, and - wouldn't you just know it - "research revealed that the abduction took place sometime between 6:00 and 12:00".
"I considered this was a near miss and the taping continued," Jacobs writes. Weeks later, Melissa was abducted again. Of course, it had to be on the night she slept downstairs on the couch "to get away from the noise of her neighbours arguing upstairs," now didn't it?
Abductee 2: Karen Morgan
"A few months later Karen Morgan agreed to use a video camera and a similar pattern began to emerge," Jacobs tells us. Indeed, it did. The aliens cleverly waited until Karen "forgot to set up the camera" before abducting her. They also abducted her when she was away visiting relatives or sleeping on a friend's yacht. After one abduction from her bedroom, Karen noticed that "the camera wires had been pulled from the back of the VCR". On another occasion, she woke to find that the VCR had been turned off, though she distinctly remembered activating it before she went to bed.
"More abductees wanted to use the camera," recalls Jacobs. "And as we gained more experience with it, we began to notice that the video equipment would sometimes mysteriously malfunction or be turned off - and an abduction would follow. Unusual power outages that affected only the immediate surroundings (sometimes not even other rooms) would cause the VCR to go off and an abduction would follow."
Abductee 3: Unnamed Female
Abductee no 3 "felt the urge at 5:30am... to get out of bed, walk over to the VCR and turn it off... all of which was recorded on tape. She later remembered seeing Small Beings who were standing just outside of camera range directing her to do it".
Abductee 4: Unnamed Female
Another unnamed abductee "felt very nervous one night and had the irresistible urge to get out of bed... and sleep in her parent's room. As soon as she was away from the camera, she was abducted".
Abductee 5: Unnamed Female
Abductee no 5 "had the urge to go to bed three hours before she normally did. An abduction took place before the VCR was programmed to go on."
Jacobs does not reveal what happened to the sixth abductee, but presumably their efforts to videotape their abductions were equally fruitless. In his 1998 book, The Threat, he briefly returns to the topic, observing:
Quote:Training a video camera and recorder on an abductee every night has produced limited results. Some abductees report a dramatic decrease in abductions. Most report that the frequency of abductions tends to decrease only a bit.What is most striking about these accounts is not that the aliens managed to repeatedly foil attempts to videotape them. It is that they appeared to completely lack a consistent strategy for doing so.
So far, no abductions have been videotaped. Rather, tapes reveal people getting up and inexplicably turning off the VCR, or unusual power outages during which the camera turns off, or the camera simply goes off mysteriously. (p.262)
Presumably, these abductees were all being abducted by the same species of alien (if not by the exact same away team). And surely once those aliens had realised that abductees were using video surveillance, they would have formulated a strategy to deal with it? Surely the bigwig in charge of the abduction programme would have circulated a memo to his underlings outlining the correct course of action to take? I imagine it reading something like this:
Quote:From: Chief Commander Krill, Head of Abduction Programme, Earth SectorBut no - the aliens tried everything but removing the tape from the VCR. Sometimes they used their advanced mind control methods to make abductees switch the VCR off. Sometimes they waited until abductees had gone to bed early, or had forgotten to turn the camera on. Sometimes they yanked the cables out of the back of the VCR. Sometimes they arranged for "unusual power outages". And sometimes they just waited until abductees spent a night away from home before abducting them.
To: All Away Teams currently operating on Earth
Re: Use of Video Recording Equipment by Test Subjects
It has recently come to my attention that several of our test subjects are attempting to capture video footage of our Away Teams extracting them from their bedrooms. The equipment they are using consists of a static camera connected to a VCR recorder. (These primitive Earthlings have shown themselves strangely reluctant to adopt the superior Betamax format favoured by all truly advanced civilisations.)
All Away Teams will therefore task one team member with the responsibility of ejecting the tape from the VCR and taking it with them when they evacuate the premises. This is by far the quickest and simplest method of ensuring that no evidence of our activities ever falls into the hands of the Earthling known as Jacobs.
May I remind our Away Teams that we are working to a strict schedule and cannot afford to waste time standing idly by until our test subjects "decide to spend the night on a yacht" before abducting them.
Due to his repeated failure to achieve his quota of assigned abductions, Team Leader Xxxtibix has now been removed from abduction duty and reassigned to a junior position within the On-Board Rectal Probing Team. I am confident that you will all enjoy working with his successor, Team Leader Zzztibix, whom many of you will recognise as a frequent recipient of our Employee of the Month award.
It all seems rather haphazard - if not downright incompetent. You know, for a moment there I really thought that we might be being invaded by "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic". But no - it's even worse than that. We're being invaded by morons.
http://www.wunderkabinett.co.uk/damndata...a-Shy.html
