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Whitley Strieber

barfing_pumpkin said:
"If, as oldtimeradio claims, that all 800,000 responses to an alien abduction questionnaire are equally valid...."

Whoops! DIDN'T say that! Not even remotely.

What I actually said was that "all evidence should be tossed into the hopper" - meaning that all evidence should be CONSIDERED, regardless of the source.

But you seem to believe that "to consider" authomatically means "to find valid."

Nope, sorry, doesn't work that way.
 
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Mighty_Emperor said:
barfing_pumpkin said:
I think she managed to interview 150

Not really a figure large enough to extrapolate to society as a whole, then.

Well its better than no data at all - which is what those claiming a good proportion of abductees are mentally ill have.

Obviously I'd be interested in seeing more studies done into this but until then...

I shoul have said there was an earlier study - Spanos et al (1993) reference and abstract here:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 071#598071

They ran abductees and a control sample through the same battery of tests (for mental illness, fantasy proneness, etc.) and found now differnce between the two groups. Again the sample size was relatively low (a total of 176 people tested with 49 abductees - although this isn't particularily unusual in studies like this when you can't make people do the tests) and one could argue that again it might not be possible to extrapolate but it is still showing a similar pattern and you could never test the whole 800,000 who contacted Streiber.
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
"If, as oldtimeradio claims, that all 800,000 responses to an alien abduction questionnaire are equally valid...."

Whoops! DIDN'T say that! Not even remotely.

So we agree then that the figure of 800,000 shouldn't be taken at face value, for whatever reason?

Good. Can we hug now?

BTW - I, uh, kind of got mixed up with the number of people who contacted Streiber and those who responded to Hopkins' Roper poll (or whatever it was called) - whoops. Before numerous peeps here go off on a tiresome trawl around the internet looking for Hopkins' figures, if anyone has the statistics culled from this poll at hand, it'd be nice to see them on this thread.

Didn't Hopkins claim that something like 5 million (or some ridiculous figure like that) Americans were being abducted by aliens?
 
^ ^ I know Hopkins in person and I've not heard him give a figure out as to how many people have been abducted by his calculations. Why does it matter?
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
"So we agree then that the figure of 800,000 shouldn't be taken at face value, for whatever reason?"

We can't toss out any of those 800,000 cases until they are studied, examined, vetted one against the other, statistics compiled. Oral historians call this process the "triangulation" of reports.

Hey, it may be that we'll wind up tossing them ALL out.

And:

"Didn't Hopkins claim that something like 5 million (or some ridiculous figure like that) Americans were being abducted by aliens?"

Before describing that figure as "ridiculous" (which it may be) we'd have to know how many of Strieber's correspondents were Americans. If all were, or nearly all, and one-sixth (a remarkably high estimate) of all American experiencers contacted Streiber that "5 million" would be right on the mark.

P. S. As to the numbers of Forteans who have neurological disorders, what I CAN tell you is that those members of [email protected] and FTMBs who have contacted me with their own stories have been REGULAR, PRODUCTIVE, ACTIVE, CONTINUING members of the lists....NOT lurkers. So the total membership numbers don't apply.

It may be an "obsessive" concentration on dates and details that makes a Fortean researcher effective.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
We can't toss out any of those 800,000 cases until they are studied, examined, vetted one against the other, statistics compiled. Oral historians call this process the "triangulation" of reports.
Going quite OT here:
In navigation (before GPS) it was common to take three bearings of known objects to fix one's position. In an ideal world, these bearings would cross at a single point, your actual postion.

But in practice, the bearings usually cross each other in such a way as to leave a small triangle, and traditionally this triangle (known as a cocked hat) was considered to contain the vessel's actual position.

But years after I'd learned (and frequently used) this information, I realised (via an OU course), that the chance of the vessel actually being in the cocked hat is only 1 in 8!

So my advice is, Beware of Triangulations!
 
We can't toss out any of those 800,000 cases until they are studied, examined, vetted one against the other, statistics compiled.

In which case, it would be foolish to take that figure as gospel, wouldn't it?

Before describing that figure as "ridiculous" (which it may be) we'd have to know how many of Strieber's correspondents were Americans. If all were, or nearly all, and one-sixth (a remarkably high estimate) of all American experiencers contacted Streiber that "5 million" would be right on the mark.

and



I know Hopkins in person and I've not heard him give a figure out as to how many people have been abducted by his calculations. Why does it matter?

Shome confushion, shurely! (although I myself, um, have not been completely immune to this. ahem.)

P. S. As to the numbers of Forteans who have neurological disorders, what I CAN tell you is that those members of [email protected] and FTMBs who have contacted me with their own stories have been REGULAR, PRODUCTIVE, ACTIVE, CONTINUING members of the lists....NOT lurkers. So the total membership numbers don't apply.

And yet, in previous posts, Oldtimeradio, you have stated:

A high percentage of Forteans (very much including myself) seem to have "mental disturbances," mostly neurotic conditions such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Aspergers Syndrome/Disease and Clinical Depression.

and

I have no way of giving you an exact percentage. But the "how" is very easy - we've discussed these things quite frequently on [email protected]. And whenever I've mentioned my Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Aspergers and Clinical Depression I've received many offline communications from both Forteana and from here on FTMB from other members of the "club." Thus the percentage is QUITE high.

So...if the total membership numbers of the FTMB do not apply...how can you assume that 'quite a high percentage' of forteans have the conditions you describe? Just because you personally talk a greater number of forteans with these conditions is no reason to therefore assume that the greater proportion of forteans in general also have the same conditions.

And by the way - why discount the lurkers? Why should they be invalid, just because they don't meet your particular standards as to what constitues a fortean? Isn't their testimony as good as the others? Shouldn't their experiences 'be allowed to go into the hopper' as well?
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
"In which case, it would be foolish to take that figure as gospel, wouldn't it?"

I'm not taking it as gospel, merely as THE TOTAL NUMBER OF REPORTS Strieber received.

Tell me, would you have been more or less impressed had Strieber received EIGHT replies rather than 800,000?

As for Forteans with neurological syndromes let me submit this revision:

"Those Forteans with whom I interact, in person, through ground mail or e-mail, or via Net discussion lists, seem to have a much higher percentage of such spectrum neuroses as Anxiety Neurosis, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Aspergers Disease and Clinical Depression than the general run of the poulation. I am aware of this because I have discussed these things at length with the Forteans in question. ALTHOUGH THIS IS A LIMITED STATISTICAL SAMPLE IT INCLUDES ENOUGH OF THE LEADING LIGHTS IN OUR FIELD THAT I BELIEVE THAT IT CAN SAFELY BE EXTRAPOLATED FROM THE MICROCOSM TO THE MACROCOSM. (I'd be worried if the Forteans in my sample were all just hangers-on, but very few if any of them are that.) I could, of course, simply be in error, but I don't believe that I am."

I am by no means discounting lurkers, but not having contact with them I'm reluctant to quote them. (And wouldn't anyway, taking personal anonymity in these matters very seriously.)
 
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don't know how many messages Strieber expected, a few dozen perhaps, but he received EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND replies.

Morever, THIRTY THOUSAND of those communications were reports of mutiple-witness cases, where two or more individuals had been "abducted" at the same time.

These were of course only those experiencers who had contacted Strieber. And the "abduction" experience has been been reported many times throughout recorded history. Based on Strieber's statistics above, the total number of unrecorded "abductions" throughout human history must run into the many, many millions and perhaps billions.

And then, later on you say:
I'm not taking it as gospel, merely as THE TOTAL NUMBER OF REPORTS Strieber received.

No. You used the word 'experiencers' in the previous post - not 'claimants' or 'respondents' - thereby implying that every single one of these 800,000 people had a 'genuine' abduction experience.

And I'm not impressed by this figure at all, simply - because as we both agree - it cannot be taken as gospel. And if he'd only had eight reports - well, at least then there'd be a chance of following them up.



"Those Forteans with whom I interact, in person, through ground mail or e-mail, or via Net discussion lists, seem to have a much higher percentage of such spectrum neuroses as Anxiety Neurosis, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Aspergers Disease and Clinical Depression than the general run of the poulation. I am aware of this because I have discussed these things at length with the Forteans in question. ALTHOUGH THIS IS A LIMITED STATISTICAL SAMPLE IT INCLUDES ENOUGH OF THE LEADING LIGHTS IN OUR FIELD THAT I BELIEVE THAT IT CAN SAFELY BE EXTRAPOLATED FROM THE MICROCOSM TO THE MACROCOSM. (I'd be worried if the Forteans in my sample were all just hangers-on, but very few if any of them are that.) I could, of course, simply be in error, but I don't believe that I am."

So. How many do you actually interact with? I'm not asking for any personal details, or anything like that - just a figure, so that we are all illuminated by how you can claim that a 'high percentage' of forteans in general have mental problems.[/i]
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
"No. You used the word 'experiencers' in the previous post - not 'claimants' or 'respondents' - thereby implying that every single one of these 800,000 people had a 'genuine' abduction experience."

Yes. People with delirium tremens EXPERIENCE pink elephants and five-headed snakes. That doesn't neccessarily make those weirdities objective realities. On the other hand if somebody with the DTs calls the cops to report a plane crash in his field, is it safe to totally disregard that report? Especially when OTHER people are ALSO reporting the same thing?

My own working hypothesis is that most likely NOBODY has been abducted from their bedrooms at night by aliens, taken away to their starships, timeships or dimensionships, poked and prodded and returned. (Though I don't want to be overly dogmatic here either.) But I also theorize that at least some of these cases may involve the Paranormal and possibly even other intelligences than human. That's my current position, at any rate - and I could simply be just plain WRONG about ALL of this stuff.

barfing_pumpkin said:
"So. How many do you actually interact with? I'm not asking for any personal details, or anything like that - just a figure, so that we are all illuminated by how you can claim that a 'high percentage' of forteans in general have mental problems."


You QUOTED my explanation of this from my previous post. With all respect, it might have helped if you'd actually READ it. <g>

But part of the explanation may be that both Forteans and neurotics tend to fall towards the high end of the bell-shaped intelligence curve.

In any case, I think this particular exchange is becoming tedious and counterproductive and most likely boring to other Forteans. I'm impressed that Strieber received 800,000 reports - WHATEVER that means. You are not.

I think it has to end here.
 
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After having read and thoroughly enjoyed COMMUNION by WHITLEY STRIEBER (which I would highly recommend) ... I've yet to decide whether I believe it or not - I'm open minded.
 
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Strieber claims to have been abducted. Whether it actually happened anywhere outside of his imagination is another thing entirely.
 
Jerry_B said:
Strieber claims to have been abducted. Whether it actually happened anywhere outside of his imagination is another thing entirely.

True, but let's not forget that when Strieber asked his readers to communicate their own abduction experiences to him he received well over half-a-million positive responses, 30,000 of them MULTIPLE-EXPERIENCER REPORTS.

Now that does not neccessarily make abductions objectively "real," but it's certainly real enough to the "abductees."
 
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True, but let's not forget that when Strieber asked his readers to communicate their own abduction experiences to him he received well over half-a-million positive responses, 30,000 of them MULTIPLE-EXPERIENCER REPORTS.

Oh god! You're not starting that one up again are you, Oldtime?
 
What's "that one"?
 
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Oh, some old argument Oldtime and I had about this 'multi-experiencer' thing on another thread. If I could figure out how to link to other threads on this board I'd post the link - but I really can't be arsed.
 
But what did Streiber do with all these thousands of experiencer reports? As far as I know he simply cherry picked the best ones and published them as the Communion Letters.

According to Streiber:
These letters are the single most mysterious document that has ever been assembled in human history. Taken together, they represent a genuine communication from the beyond. They are entirely authentic, most of them written long before the close encounter experience became common knowledge.

Dodgy grammar aside, the claim that the letters (which obviously postdate the publication of Communion in 1987) were written "before the close encounter experience became common knowledge" is quite ridiculous.

And having read the book, I'm afraid it didn't really strike me as "the single most mysterious document... in human history". (That would probably be the 1998 Teletubbies Annual.)
 
H_James said:
What's "that one"?.

Months ago I brought up the sheer volume of abduction reports Strieber had received .

I believed (and still do) the the weight of these massed testimonies suggests that we are dealing with a GENUINE PHENOMENON.....whether or not "abductions" actually take place.

Mr. Pumpkins didn't see it this way at all.

So we had a rather jolly old Fortean time at it.
 
Whitney Strieber

Ive only read two of his books, Communion and Transformation.

Both scared my reality back in my teens but left me alittle confused as this guy was supposed to have been abducted by aliens :) I smile now and i doubt his encounters.

Ive noticed a website in his name where he plugs recent ufo events and also displays his new novels!!!!!

Me thinking this guy is just a creative writer cashing in on the ET/UFO experience?

Whats your opinion?
 
No idea.
I'm not familiar with the work of Whitney Strieber.
 
I love Whitney Strieber, she was great in The Bodyguard.
 
Oh FFS, someone tell him! (BTW, is this in the right thread?, Fortean culture maybe?)
 
Re: Whitney Strieber

macrosblack said:
Ive only read two of his books, Communion and Transformation.

Both scared my reality back in my teens but left me alittle confused as this guy was supposed to have been abducted by aliens :) I smile now and i doubt his encounters...

Whats your opinion?
Well, have merged your thread about Whitney Strieber to the main Whitley Strieber one, in which we discuss how he's scared other poster's realities, or otherwise.
 
_Herald_ said:
I love Whitney Strieber, she was great in The Bodyguard.

:D

Yeah - Whitney Strieber must be the illegitimate love child of Whitney Houston and Whitley Strieber...
 
Just watched a documentary on Whitley Streiber, have never read his book 'Communion', or anything about him.
He was interviewed extensively and came across as truly frightened and puzzled by his many abduction experiences.
His wife was also interviewed and was stunned that after Streiber wrote 'Communion', they were inundated by hundreds of thousands of letters from complete strangers who wrote, thanking him for writing the book, saying they thought they were the only ones to be having these experiences and were too frightened to come forward.
I don't think anyone knows or realizes the real extent of all this.
 
Just watched a documentary on Whitley Streiber, have never read his book 'Communion', or anything about him.
He was interviewed extensively and came across as truly frightened and puzzled by his many abduction experiences.
His wife was also interviewed and was stunned that after Streiber wrote 'Communion', they were inundated by hundreds of thousands of letters from complete strangers who wrote, thanking him for writing the book, saying they thought they were the only ones to be having these experiences and were too frightened to come forward.
I don't think anyone knows or realizes the real extent of all this.
I used to have that book. It was interesting, but I didn't feel motivated to read it again.
 
I used to have that book. It was interesting, but I didn't feel motivated to read it again.
I don't really want to hear about all the abductions, but what struck me was how 'hundreds of thousands' of others contacted him about their own experiences.
Just seems that there is something going on underneath all the denials of these flying vehicles in our air space.
The government should just give it up already, we are not children.
 
I don't really want to hear about all the abductions, but what struck me was how 'hundreds of thousands' of others contacted him about their own experiences.
Just seems that there is something going on underneath all the denials of these flying vehicles in our air space.
The government should just give it up already, we are not children.

"we are not children." - :) I disagree; I would hazard a guess that in addition to the millions of actual children in the US by age, about 15-20% of the remainder (adults) are not capable of rational thought and self-control. About 15% of the US population has an estimated IQ of 85 or less. Not children per se, just gullible and not very smart. Almost nobody in our egalitarian, equal opportunity country wants to acknowledge it, but it does shape public policy, along with other factors.

BTW, just because Mr. Streiber claimed that hundreds of thousands of people wrote to him with similar experiences, does not make it true.
 
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"we are not children." - :) I disagree; I would hazard a guess that in addition to the millions of actual children in the US by age, about 15-20% of the remainder are not capable of rational thought and self-control. About 15% of the US population has an estimated IQ of 85 or less. Not children per se, just gullible and not very smart. Almost nobody in our egalitarian, equal opportunity country wants to acknowledge it, but it does shape public policy, along with other factors.

BTW, just because Mr. Streiber claimed that hundreds of thousands of people wrote to him with similar experiences, does not make it true.
The US army won't take anyone of IQ83 and under as they are fundamentally untrainable and will be a liability in any role. It's one of those social problems no-one wants to talk about and every country has it.
 
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