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It is written:
Romans 15:14 (ERV)-My brothers and sisters, I know without a doubt that you are full of goodness and have all the knowledge you need. So you are certainly able to counsel each other.
Over the years, I have worked with several people who have had experienced what they believed were “alien abductions.” Many of these had explicit memories of encounters, as well as messages from the “aliens.” Upon close examination, it was discovered that many of these experiences were not attributable to experiences with beings from other planets, but to demonic deceptions. When they submitted their lives to Christ, these experiences inevitably stopped.
Sadly, many of these individuals faced ridicule and ostracization from some Christians that they had approached. It was an eye opening experience for me as well. I had Christian friends unfriend me on Facebook when discussing these matters, and I experienced a great deal of reluctance from some of my brethren who mistakenly believe that any and all supernatural events ceased when Jesus died on the cross. The New Testament clearly refutes such ideas (Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Peter 5:8; James 4:7; Hebrews 1:14:13:2).
Recently, I was reading a book about alien abduction and learned something terrible and eye opening. It is not a Christian book, and I do not recommend reading it without a warning that it is very graphic and explicit. I am also sorry to say that I learned it is based on a true story. You see, the book is about a man who had flashbacks to what he believed were alien abductions experiences, only he learned later that he had actually been sexually abused as a child by a baseball coach and another young man who was also a victim of the same man. His mind had reframed these experiences and transformed them into what he believed to be an alien abduction experience. I share the following redacted section for your consideration. In it, the young man who had participated in the sexual abused with the Coach had received a letter from a friend.
“Then, somewhere around page three, things got interesting: Here’s the main reason for this letter. Four days ago I met this guy. It’s weird but I’ve spent tons of time with him ever since, all four days as a matter of fact. No, it’s not what you think, we’re not ______________. I don’t even think he’s __________. I can’t see him ever having sex with anyone, actually. Anyway, he’s just started school at the stupid college. He’s from this totally tiny nearby town called Little River, and I went there yesterday and it looks artificial, like it’s only a dream of a town, its buildings and churches and trees like a movie set’s cardboard cutouts, ready to topple at the slightest kick. That sounds stupid but it’s true. His name’s Brian. He’s blond, awkward-looking, glasses, zits, etc. So here’s the story: he’s obsessed with you. No, I’m not kidding. I caught him hanging out in front of your house, a while after you’d left. When I spied him, he asked, “Are you N. McCormick?” I freaked. I told him no. Turns out he used to play on your Little League team—well, he only played for a couple of games or whatever. He was squad’s worst player, etc. Now take a deep breath, make sure you’re sitting down for this, all that. Yesterday, after hem-hawing and beating around the bush, he basically told me that although he’s not exactly sure, he thinks that when you and he were kids, you were abducted by a UFO and examined by space aliens. He was completely serious, and believe me I could tell from the look in his eyes. He blabbed on and on, sort of baring his soul about this woman friend of his who’s been abducted, been on nationwide TV, etc., and telling me about these dreams he’s had where you and he are inside a blue room and these extraterrestrials are reaching out to you, touching you all over, communicating with you in this weird sort of ESP way (and of course that last little detail really drew me in, considering my interest in ESP stuff). Anyway when he’d finished telling me all this he just looked me straight in the eye and said, “But actually I’m beginning to realize something else really happened, and all this is crap.” (When he said “something else,” it was as if the words were italicized, and when he said “crap” it was like he’d never sworn before.) So what’s the story on this? Do you remember Brian or what? And WERE YOU ABDUCTED BY A UFO? If so, why haven’t you told me about it etc? Weird. Eric’s letter continued, but at that point I stopped reading. At first I answered no, I couldn’t remember anyone named Brian from my past; I couldn’t even recall a Brian from my Hutchinson junior high days. The part about the UFOs twisted my face into a foolish smile, the kind that forms whenever I hear something astounding and irresistible. I felt as though someone had whispered the world’s juiciest gossip, tickling me all the while. Then I stopped smiling and really considered Eric’s words. The kid named Brian, my Little League team, the part about “something else” actually happening—it seemed both familiar and unpleasantly intimate, so much so I felt embarrassed. Brian? I shut my eyes, thinking. Brian. Instead of the boy, my closed eyes and concentration gave me a substitute image. Coach. The glitter in his eyes, the rough sand-colored mustache, his muscles’ ripples and curves—all there, crystallized within a precious cranny of my brain. He was still part of me. It was love, I told myself. Coach had loved me. But there had been others, boys whose faces I’d seen smiling from his photo albums. And I could remember three separate times when he’d brought other boys home to join in, to add fuel to the forbidden. Had one of the three been Brian? These boys’ faces stayed vague, beyond surfacing. Perhaps Coach’s emotions for them had caused me to feel jealous, inadequate, or damaged; whatever the reason, I had dislocated my memories of them. And their names were as incapable of being conjured as the names of men I’d tricked with from Carey Park, from Rudy’s, from anywhere. When it came to names, I remembered Coach and nothing more. “I’m beginning to realize something else really happened.” I could hear Brian, whoever he was, saying that to Eric. Perhaps the UFO story amounted to nothing but ________________. Perhaps he’d already told Eric about Coach, and they’d agreed to pull my leg all the way from Kansas, to see what I’d say. Perhaps, and perhaps not. I didn’t want to think about it. I considered telephoning Eric, but I couldn’t. Only one other person knew about Coach—Wendy—and even she didn’t fully understand the story. She couldn’t know the privacy and the bliss I felt when he held me, and yes, the love. Coach existed in my past, my most special and unblemished memory. Eric could never know about him; Mom could never know. Whatever recollections Eric’s new friend held, I couldn’t allow them to interfere with mine. But even as I thought this—as I fell back on the floor and tossed aside Eric’s letter—I had the weird idea that I knew Brian, or at least understood him, as if I’d been burdened with the sort of ESP that Eric could only fantasize having. It was a confident knowledge, and it scared me…. As I strode the avenues toward Rounds, I contemplated Eric’s letter. The UFO bunk still confused me, but by now I’d cemented my certainty that this “Brian” was another kid from Coach’s history, a boy he’d selected from the Little League lineup. If that were indeed true, then I’d had some form of prepubescent sex with him—a tidbit he’d either (a) disremembered, or (b) hadn’t chosen to tell Eric. The three separate occasions when Coach suckered another kid into our afternoons still floated around in my head somewhere. I could remember Coach’s voice, hissing instructions…His voice remained, as lucid as crystal, as crisp as the five-dollar bills he’d hand to me and anyone else after we’d satiated him. In my head I envisioned a Forty-second Street marquee, strobes pulsing with NEIL AND BRIAN MEET THE LITTLE LEAGUE COACH. Yes, it was entirely possible. I reached the doorway to Rounds, and I tucked these thoughts away. After all, how could I successfully hustle wearing a face distorted with complicated memory? “I’ll think about it later.”” (Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin: A Novel, 225-230 (Kindle Edition): New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins Books)
One psychiatrist who (along with his team) conducted a close study of the connections between alien abduction experiences and sexual abuse. Here is what they learned:
“The studies summarized in this chapter constitute the first attempts to investigate cognitive processing in people reporting either repressed or recovered memories of trauma. They suggest several conclusions. First, such individuals typically exhibit symptoms of psychological distress, and they are characterized by elevated scores on measures of absorption and dissociation. These elevations may reflect either a propensity for repressing traumatic memories, a propensity for forming false memories of trauma, or a consequence of abuse itself (assuming it occurred). (Subjects who had always remembered their abuse did not have elevated scores on these measures.) Second, individuals reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse are capable of guarding against the memory-distorting effects of guided imagery, but fall prey to false memory effects in the less transparent DRM paradigm, as do those reporting recovered memories of alien abduction. Third, we have found no evidence that subjects reporting either repressed or recovered memories of sexual abuse have a superior ability to forget trauma-related material. If abuse survivors do not exhibit superior ability to forget mere words related to trauma, one must question their ability to forget autobiographical traumatic memories. Fourth, subjects reporting either recovered or repressed memories of sexual abuse performed very differently from sexual abuse survivors with PTSD on our experimental tasks. None of our studies can answer the question, Were the subjects who believed they had repressed memories of abuse and those who reported having recovered memories of abuse actually abused as children? Nevertheless, the methods of cognitive psychology may help resolve this controversy by enabling scientists to test hypotheses about how people may either forget traumatic events or come to believe they have been traumatized when, in fact, they have not.” (Richard J. McNally, Remembering Trauma, 273-274 (Kindle Edition): Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press)
It is not being suggested here that every example of “alien abduction” experience is attributable to sexual abuse, but there is a case to be made that some may be so understood.
We live in a fallen world, and we need to do our best to minister to people with whatever experiences they have survived through. Wherever they are spiritually, we do our best to meet them there. Sometimes ministry will require specialized persons who have very specific skill sets (counselors, psychiatrists, preachers, etc.). There are, however, some things that we can all do, such as listening to our friends, bearing their burdens with them as best as we can, praying with them and for them, and making every effort to point them in the right direction to get further help.
Most importantly: we can tell them of Jesus Who fully understand their struggles (Hebrews 4:15-16).
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.