Budd
Hopkins (June 15, 1931 – August 21, 2011) was
an American painter,
sculptor, and
prominent figure in abduction phenomenon, and
related UFO research.
Life
Born
in 1931 and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia. He graduated
from Oberlin College in 1953, that same year moving to
New York City, where he lived until his death in 2011.
Hopkins'
art is in the permanent collections in the Whitney
Museum, the Guggenheim
Museum, Hirshhorn
Museum, and at the Museum
of Modern Art; he received
grants or endowments from the Guggenheim Foundation
and the National Endowment for
the Arts. His articles on art appeared in magazines
and journals, and he lectured at many art schools, including
Truro Center for the Arts at
Castle Hill.
Interest
in UFOs
In
1964, Hopkins and two others reported
seeing a UFO in daylight for several minutes.
Fascinated, Hopkins joined the now-defunct UFO research
group National
Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena
(NICAP)
and began reading many UFO books and articles.
In
1975, Hopkins and Ted
Bloecher studied a multiple-witness UFO
report, the North
Hudson Park UFO sightings, which occurred
in New Jersey. In 1976, the Village
Voice printed Hopkins' account of the investigation.
Hopkins
began receiving regular letters from other UFO witnesses,
including a few cases of what would later be called "missing
time" — inexplicable gaps in one's
memory, associated with UFO encounters.
Alien
abduction
With
Bloecher and psychologist
Aphrodite Clamar,
Hopkins began investigating the missing time experiences,
and eventually came to conclude that the missing time
cases were due to alien abduction.
By
the late 1980s, Hopkins was one of the most prominent
people in Ufology, earning a level of mainstream attention
that was nearly unprecedented for the field.
Hopkins
wrote several popular books about abductees, notably Missing
Time, and was the founder of the Intruders
Foundation, a non-profit organization created
to document and research alien abductions, and to provide
support to abductees.
For
roughly the first seven years of his investigation of
the abduction phenomenon, Hopkins himself conducted no
hypnosis sessions. Rather, he secured the aid of licensed
professionals. He noted that three of these therapists
(Drs. Robert Naiman,
Aphrodite Clamar and
Girard Franklin) were
quite skeptical of the reality of abduction claims, yet
all "uncovered" detailed abduction scenarios
from their patients.
The
1992 made-for-television film Intruders
was based on Hopkins' research, and portrayed abduction
scenes. Additionally, Hopkin's 1996 book, Witnessed,
portrays a classic abduction case that was alleged to
have occurred in late 1989 near the Brooklyn Bridge in
New York City. This case is unique in that it is one of
the first publicized episodes that involved multiple abductees
(who did not previously know each other) that come to
know each other in the "real" world through
a variety of circumstances connected to their abductions.
Additionally, this case involved inter-generational abductions
within the same family.
Criticism
Controversy
was a persistent feature of Hopkins' career in alien abduction
and UFO studies. While few seemed to doubt Hopkin's motives
or sincerity, critics charged that Hopkins was out of
his element when he used hypnosis, thereby aiding his
subjects in confabulation — the blending of fact
and fantasy. However, Hopkins insisted such criticism
is specious. He wrote, "I have often frequently
invited interested therapists, journalists and academics
to observe hypnosis sessions. Theoretical psychologist
Nicholas Humphrey,
who has held teaching positions at both Oxford and Cambridge
Universities, and psychiatrist Donald.
F. Klein, director of research at the New
York State Psychiatric Institute and professor of psychiatry
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University,
are but two of those who have observed my work firsthand.
None of these visitors ... have reported anything that
suggested I was attempting to lead the subjects."
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_Hopkins
