History of Implant Claims
According to researcher Peter Rogerson (who is generally skeptical of alien abduction claims), the idea of allegedly genuine alien implants can be traced back to the 1950s, as part of the so-called "Shaver Mystery" -- claims that the "Dero", a sinister civilization beneath the earth, was kidnapping people for torture. Rogerson writes:
- the March 1957 edition of the Long John Nebel radio show featured John Robinson, a sidekick of Jim Moseley reporting a dramatically spooky, if not very plausible, abduction tale. The gist of it was that in 1944 Robinson had a neighbour named Steve Brodie who one day saw (in Robinson's apartment) a copy of one of Ray Palmer's magazines featuring the Dero. Brodie yelled out "He speaks of the Dero!", and proceeded to tell Robinson how he had been prospecting out west with a companion in 1938. One day they encountered two mysterious cowled figures who paralyzed Brodie by pointing a rod-like device at him. When the companion tried to flee, they fired at him and Brodie heard him scream, and smelled burnt flesh. When one of the figures placed 'small earphones' behind his ears he lost consciousness. From time to time he came to, in a place which fellow prisoners told him was the cave of the Dero. Each time his brain began to clear, the cowled one adjusted the earphones and he lost consciousness again.
- He eventually came to, walking the streets of Manhattan two years later. Brodie showed Robinson scarred patches behind his ears, a little smaller than a silver dollar. Since his ordeal Brodie claimed he was unable to eat meat ... Time passed; Robinson left the apartment but on returning for a visit found that Brodie had disappeared. Another neighbour told Robinson that he had seen Brodie in Arizona, wandering about like a zombie. We are presumably supposed to conclude that he was back under the control of the Dero.
- It is in this unlikely tale that we first encounter the implants (behind the ears, as in Invasion of the Martians) and other abductionist staples such as the paralyzing rods and the doorway amnesia.
In later years, the claims of people like Budd Hopkins and David Michael Jacobs would popularize alien abduction ideas in general, including reports of unusual "implants" associated with abductions. Dr. John E. Mack, claims in his book Abduction that "I have myself studied a 1/2- to 3/4-inch thin, wiry object that was given to me by one of my clients, a twenty-four-year-old woman, after it came out of her nose following an abduction experience." An examination of the object revealed it consisted of a twisted fiber of carbon, silicon, oxygen and other trace elements, but no nitrogen.
Read more about this topic: Alien Implants
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