The following is an article from the May '95 (Vol. 3, #5) issue of The
REALL News.  It may be reprinted by other skeptics organizations as long as
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                       The Curse of the Space Mummies
                            by Martin Kottmeyer
Ufologists are diligent when it comes to spotting similarities between UFO
cases, but often seem to turn a blind eye to the differences. Raymond
Fowler and Budd Hopkins found it significant that Betty Andreasson and
Sandra Larson share identical nasal implant operations, but are silent on
the very dissimilar appearance of the surgeons. Andreasson reported 4-foot
tall gray-skinned entities with bald, pear-shaped heads. Larson reported a
6- foot tall entity with metallic arms and wrappings over the head. She
referred to it as a "mummy."
The difference between the entities is all the more surprising when you
begin to tally up all the other features the two cases share beyond the
sinus operations. They both experience floating sensations and travel
through walls. Both are given tummy exams. Both are temporarily caged in
body-molded transparent enclosures. Both see a realm on a distant landscape
that is as bare of vegetation as a desert, which has square buildings in
it. Both travel through tunnels. Both are drawn into transport bubbles.
While Andreasson does not report encountering any mummies, there are
features of her account which hark back to the country most of us associate
with mummies, Egypt. She saw pyramids. They are distinctly based on the
Egyptian style. Besides the similar angles and flat facing, there is an
indenting of some faces exactly like the Great Pyramid of Cheops. This
feature of indentation is not widely known, but is accessible in popular
works like Andre Pochan's The Mysteries of the Great Pyramids. She also saw
a big head like the Sphinx. The Phoenix encountered by Andreasson continues
the theme since it was a bird sacred in Egypt. Herodotus even mentions it
in his ancient account of Egypt.
In an earlier paper, "The Alien Booger Menace" (The REALL News, Vol. 1, #
6), I demonstrated that similarities like nasal implants may point towards
cultural borrowing rather than shared experience. Comparing the reports of
Larson and Andreasson turns up many disparities which contribute to the
case against shared experience. Larson was encased in a transparent cube
for exhibition purposes. Andreasson was encased in a transparent body mold
and then had liquid poured in with her for purposes of transport. The
liquid repeats an experience reported by Louise Smith from the 1976
Kentucky triple abduction, and written up in Abducted! It may be relevant
to note that this book includes an account of the Larson case. Smith's
dramatic experience of liquid being poured over her has a notable precursor
in the earthling encased in fluid in the "Ordeal" episode of the 1972
series U.F.O. Unlike Larson, but like Mona Stafford of the Kentucky triple
abduction, Andreasson has her eye pulled out of its socket. This bizarre
claim recalls a magic trick performed by Filipino psychic surgeons and
explained by William Nolen in his book Healing. Doctors know the optic
nerve does not possess the elasticity needed for such a feat, but the
public apparently does not. Philip Ward's Dictionary of Common Fallacies
has an entry devoted to an idea more common earlier in this century that
surgeons sometimes remove eyes, wash them, scrape them, treat them, and
replace them.
Andreasson seems to try to improve the Larson case in some ways. The brain
removal, too reminiscent of Star Trek's worst* episode ("Spock's Brain"),
does not recur in Andreasson. Larson took a shower after her encounter to
get rid of any alien germs. The aliens ask her about soap and she gives
them a sample. Andreasson, on the other hand, enters a chamber where she is
bathed in a cleansing light and is handed a new garment afterwards. This is
recognizably a variant of the decontamination procedure in The Andromeda
Strain (1971) involving a brilliant light that destroys skin bacteria. It
also burns off all body hair in the movie. That part does not recur in
Andreasson, but we've come to expect that aliens associated with UFO
experiences never provide evidence of that intriguing sort.
The entity change away from the mummy may be another attempt at
improvement. Mummies seem out of place in American culture. They are more
associated with a kitsch form of old horror movies than the modernity of
space travel. Moviemakers try to be creative, but there is a distinct
tendency to favor aliens with a futuristic quality. That means they are
usually bald, since hairiness would be connotative of apes; and big-headed
or brains with little or no body, since that would be the logical
extrapolation of human evolution if trends over the past few million. years
were continued. Examples from film, TV, comics and SF pulp illustrations
number in the dozens. One bad film buff, I think it was Michael Weldon,
demonstrated the dilemma for abductees by his reaction to an obscure Latin
American film involving mummies from outer space. It was an a priori
hopeless premise. "Space mummies?"
Andreasson's aliens, with their hairless, pear-shaped heads, are utterly
conventional. The style is recognizably part of a family of alien forms
created for the TV series The Outer Limits, but their immediate precursor
is demonstrably the alien designed for The UFO Incident, the 1975
television-movie adaptation of The Interrupted Journey. The movie is
remarkably faithful to the book and the design of the alien is also quite
true to drawings that have appeared in the book, and were elaborated on for
David Baker for the April 1972 issue of NlCAP's UFO Investigator. But that
faithfulness is not flawless. There is a sharp angle to the inner comers of
the eye sockets where the original shows a rounded curve. The pupils of the
eyes are much larger. Andreasson's drawings reflect these alterations.
There are four close-ups of the aliens and the right eye is always
different in appearance to the left. On three of the shots the eye on the
left appears blank with an absence of white to it: it is reversed on the
second close-up. The disparity seems like it could be due to heavy glass
being used by the designer and the camera angle creating the effect.
Whatever the reason, Andreasson repeats the disparity in her drawing of
Quazgaa. Quazgaa is also drawn with a feeler crease above the eye which is
prominent on the movie alien, but seems an extrapolation of a feature on
Baker's drawing. Baker's drawing includes a mouth-opening covered by a
membrane. The movie and Andreasson show slits for mouths. Presumably
Andreasson's experience of having a needle stuck into her naval is
similarly borrowed from the movie.
The status and superiority of credibility granted the Hill case over other
cases can be reason enough for Andreasson favoring the UFO Incident aliens
over space mummies. The movie could also force the choice from the power of
visual images being greater than verbal descriptions such as Larson gave in
Abducted! It seems obligatory to ask, however, if it is reasonable for
Andreasson to favor the Hills' aliens, why didn't Larson borrow it also?
Larson, after all, got into ufologists' hands because she saw The UFO
Incident, and it made her concerned about a time-loss and UFO sighting she
experienced a few months earlier.
cont...
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