by Budd Hopkins

 

Over the past eighteen years I've worked intensively with many hundreds of people who have described to me their bizarre experiences with the occupants of UFOs. I've received letters and phone calls from thousands more, and have interviewed abductees in places as far from my native New York as Rio de Janeiro and Brisbane, Australia. During these years of travel and research I've sensed, in those reporting such encounters, an enormous degree of pain and confusion and terror. For the most part, the nature of my work cannot be characterized as happy, though it is always deeply rewarding to provide support and understanding and some degree of healing for a suffering fellow human being.

But one of the distinct advantages I've found in doing this kind of work is my vivid awareness of the extraordinary bravery, intelligence and strength possessed by so very many abductees. Despite their harrowing, lifelong UFO experiences, most retain their optimism, their resilience, and even their sense of humor. Simply said, over these long years I've met many beautiful souls. If the aliens are, as I suspect, attempting to bolster their apparently anemic emotional and spiritual resources by studying those qualities in the men and women they abduct, they're doing at least something right.

Kay Wilson, embodying as she does a powerful morality, a natural wisdom and a deeply human spirituality, provides an ideal example for her student captors. If the aliens can learn from any of us, what they can learn from Kay is of the highest importance. Anyone lucky enough to know her or to read her book will know exactly what I mean.

I first met Kay in April, 1988, as she describes in her Chapter Four, "The Awakening." My first impression was of a very lovely, shy and gentle young woman who radiated feelings of vulnerability and warmth. As we talked it became evident to me that she had been deeply hurt by something in her life-perhaps by several somethings-and that the process of healing would be anything but instantaneous. But I also realized that she had an enormous advantage in that Erik, her husband-to-be, was completely supportive of her desire to explore her experiences, no matter where they led. A steady support-system at home is one of an abductee's most important assets, and Erik's love for her has obviously been deeply sustaining.

The proof of the huge distance Kay has traveled between then and now can be easily demonstrated. The strong, forthright woman she has become, the clear-hearted writer who faces the world and fearlessly tells her complex, painful story, is light years away from the shy young woman I met nearly six years ago....

...Many of the memories, dreams, abduction experiences and speculative ideas which Kay presents in The Alien Jigsaw will be familiar to those acquainted with the UFO abduction literature, but some will be quite unfamiliar. One such experience is the subject of Chapter Three, titled "The Loss." It has to do with her sudden inability to perform musically after having devoted eight years to the study of wind instruments. She describes what she sees as the direct, unexpected and unwanted result of a UFO experience in this way: "Something had happened to me. The bright yellow light did something to me. It seemed as though a part of my life had ended, but I could not bring myself to believe it or accept it...I started practicing in my room instead of the music school because I didn't want anyone to hear how bad I sounded...The abrupt change of direction with my music career had repercussions that extended into what I believed I could and could not accomplish in my life...[it made] my confidence dwindle. I cannot imagine that these Beings understand the pain they cause in people's lives."

Kay goes on to relate that after she had told me about her sudden loss of musical skill, I told her of a very similar case in which a young woman with a promising career in popular music suddenly lost her ability to sing after a UFO encounter. These kinds of experiences are not known to the general public and we can be thankful that they are apparently rare; in fact, I'm quite sure that such abduction sequelae are being discussed in print here for the first time in The Alien Jigsaw...

I'm aware of only a handful of such cases, incidents which suggest a long-term alien control over the lives and careers of certain people, the purpose of which is unknown. The reason I've never presented this type of report is simple: The problems abduction experiencers routinely face are difficult at best, so I've felt no need to add to their burden of fear by suggesting still other-rarer-patterns of disturbing alien activity. And yet, because Kay has fully and openly described her musical loss in The Alien Jigsaw, some readers may find both relief and answers to old and deeply personal mysteries. Truth, no matter how unsettling, always contains the seeds of its own resolution....

The Alien Jigsaw is written with unadorned simplicity. The author's calm and modest voice is one that we immediately and intuitively accept as authoritative. We are fortunate, too, in that Kay is able to create drawings which clearly and dramatically illustrate her UFO abductions. Though her experiences with non-human intelligences are vividly presented in words and pictures, for me the most personally rewarding aspect of her book has to do with its remarkable author. I cannot help but remember this frightened young woman I met in the spring of 1988, and marvel at the heroine she has become.

Budd Hopkins, New York, December 1993.