A friend on the final year of his degree had decided to do Alien Abductions for his sociology thesis - on ideologies and belief systems. Then we saw an ad in the local paper - an abductee was going to be in town the following week. Too good to miss.
I've never seen such a filthy night, the rain is banging off the pavements as we take a bus out to Cadbury Heath which sounds like a beautiful village but it's a sprawling estate on the edge of Bristol. Disgorged from the bus, sodden, we stagger to the community centre for what is going to be one of the strangest evenings of my life.
The big bare room stinks of disinfectant, a few post world war 2 chairs in lines and sitting at the front the Abductee. I'd seen so many on TV especially from the US and read about their experiences. Even some of the UK's more upmarket papers were beginning to report their claims. But from that distance it's not possible to tell whether even they believe they're telling the truth or not. There are far too many filters. But now with one in the flesh, I might get some sort of clue as to just what is going on.
Are they liars or deluded ? Do they believe what they are saying or is at all a huge money making scam. If it is, they could find an easier way of making money.
The place is half empty and the audience is not what'd you'd expect. No hippies, no new-agers but quite a few unshaven men in donkey jackets. Builders, security guards, farmers, people up early, out and about in lonely spots who have seen things which have puzzled them.
When the hall looks as full as its going to ever be and he rain sounds as if it's going to breach the roof, the abductee begins his lecture ..
He explains that he's always known he was a little bit different. One of his earliest memories at his parents house in the Vale of Pewsey Wiltshire was of seeing discs, grey, metallic, hovering as if waiting for something, perhaps half a mile away. He remembers that his mother could see them too and she'd quickly take him away from the area and tell him she didn't want to talk about it, that it was nothing. Often she was close to panicking but he never felt any fear.
As he got older and was allowed to wander off on his own he went for long hikes in the countryside and often he'd see one of the discs, silvery grey, still always about half a mile away. Still he felt no menace. Sometimes he'd feel a presence before he actually saw an object, spin around and see a glint as the object moved out of sight behind trees or a hillock. Just like it was playing hide and seek with him. Then one day in his teens, he decided to try to make it come closer.
He sat down on a hilltop and simply thought, "it's OK to come closer", and closer it came ending up so close in fact that he felt he could have reached out and touched it. It was the first time he'd seen one of the objects that close. It was silent as it hovered maybe ten feet from the ground but he did notice a feeling, almost like static in the air and felt the hairs on his body beginning to rise.
That night he had his first abduction experience. He went on to tell us that in fact the abduction experiences reported in the USA and the ones in the UK are entirely different. There was no force used on him, he went of his own free will.
The experience he reported though was familiar to anyone who has undergone such an experience or read about them.
A medical examination and then the usual pep talk - but with one difference.
He was told that the reason this was being undertaken was to do with a collision of a body with that of the earth in which most of the population would be killed. Evolution being the force that it is, no species on any planet in the Universe resembles any another. There are so many chance events on the road from simple organism to intelligent life, each event shaping the route in a unique way, that each planet and it's life becomes unique.
What they are doing, he was told, is gathering genetic material which they want to preserve - much in the same way as we have national collections of plants.
He went on to tell us about a dramatic incident in Wiltshire in the eighties. As he approached the top of a hill with a group of people he was showing around ancient sites a disc emerged from behind trees. He yelled so that everyone could get the opportunity to see it - what he didn't know was that also approaching the hill top was a party of school children with their teachers who also spun around, many of them catching a glimpse before the object disappeared. I remember the report in the paper and the teacher in question stating that she had seen something she found puzzling, but which matched his description, a grey , silent disc
Later as he was taking a party around the same area and he was some distance away from the main party when they yelled "look up look up" .. he did and saw nothing. Running back to the crowd he noticed a hazy object in the air, it seemed to be appearing and disappearing, fuzzy at the edges, when he ran back to the spot and looked up - nothing, then he realised that they could by use of gravity bend light around themselves becoming invisible, that's why they appeared fuzzy as your angle of view changed.
Later he went on to tell us about less spiritually uplifting experiences. Close approaches of craft, emanating evil. Obviously up to no good because, the goodies only approach when invited
And it got worse - one night walking through the dark Wiltshire lanes he realised he was being followed by a black car, he felt a tremendous fear and jumped over a hedge into a field. As he peered through the branches of the hedge he saw the car widow slide down and a greysih face leaning out and sniffing the air
