Monday, December 14, 2009

Abduction

 

By Kevin Jones

The following is J.Allen Hynek's scale for close encounters with unidentifiable sightings or scenarios:


  1. Close encounters of the first kind- sighting of an unidentifiable object
  2. Close encounters of the second kind-evidence that some form of U.F.O was in the area
  3. Close encounters of the third kind- seeing an "animate being" near a U.F.O sighting
  4. Close encounters of the fourth kind- abduction

The first alleged alien abduction case took place on the night of October 16, 1957, in São Francisco de Sales Brazil. A local farmer named Antonio Villas Boas was ploughing his fields when he saw a large red star. In a short time he saw the star get closer and closer and closer, seeming less and less like a star. Boas describes that up close it looked like an egg with a red light in the front and a rotating cupola top.

 

As it began to land in his field Boas began to run. His attempt failed when he was grabbed by a 5 foot-tall human-like creature wearing grey coveralls and a helmet.  When he looked into the small blue eyes of the creature it didn't speak but instead made a bizarre bark. Three other similar looking creatures soon appeared and aided the first in dragging Boas into the craft where he was stripped of his clothes and covered in a strange gel. He was then lead into a semicircular room with strange red symbols on the doorway. They took blood from his chin and then threw him into a third room while a strange gas filled the room and made him vomit repeatedly. A half an hour later, a female version of the creatures entered the room. She had a small pointed chin with with large, blue, cat-like eyes and long, platinum blond hair.

 

The next hour was a blur but he claims that after his amnesia, he found himself on the floor of the room with the woman standing above him holding her stomach. He was given his clothes and then a tour of the ship. He was then escorted off of the ship. Then the ship took off and left just as mysteriously as it had came.

 

In the weeks that followed, Boas started to suffer from pains throughout his body, nausea, headaches, loss of appetite, ceaselessly burning sensations in the eyes, cutaneous lesions at the slightest of light bruising that looked like small reddish nodules that were harder then his own skin and were painful even when touched by light. Boas did a little research and came across a doctor named Olavo Fontes. Fontes concluded that Boas was suffering from mild radiation  sickness.  The only problem was that Fontes couldn't possibly imagine how a young farm boy could have been exposed to radiation powerful enough to cause a reaction.  Then Boas told him about his abduction.

 

The case wasn't made public until early February '58. Nowadays, we see people who claim to be abducted by extra-terrestrial beings as either having a screw loose or just wanting attention but there some things in the Boas case that separates it from most of today's reports. The first thing is that Boas never profited from his story, only sharing it with the media on two occasions.  Since this abduction happened before people really even conceived the idea of entities from another world taking people and doing unspeakable things, this would later become the most famous invasion case of all time.

 

On September 9, 1960, Betty and Barney Hill were driving on Route 3 from a trip to Niagara Falls, Canada. It was a dark starry night when Betty Hill noticed a bright light in the sky. A little later the two stopped their car and got out to get a closer look at what they thought was a communication satellite,. They couldn't have been more wrong about what they saw. When they got back into their car and continued to drive, they noticed that the craft started coming closer and was moving in unison with their Chevrolet. The craft then landed on the ground and was so large that they couldn't see anything else out of their windshield. Barney grabbed a pistol that he kept in the glove box and the couple exited the car.

 

He claimed to have seen 8 or 11 "human-like things" watching them from the craft's windows. Another entity walked out of the craft and stood approximately 80 feet away. It raised its hand and said in perfect English, "Stay where you are and keep looking." Then red lights, on what appeared to be bat-wings, began to telescope out of the sides of the craft and a long mechanical structure came down from the bottom, creeping closer to them like a cat to a mouse. When the craft was about 50 feet away, Barney ran back to Betty, who had stayed by the car, yelling, "They're going to capture us." 

 

When the Hills arrived home the next morning, they new that something was wrong. The first thing they noticed was that the pair of binoculars that they had used to witness the craft was missing its leather strap.  They had an unknown desire to examine their bodies but couldn't find anything out of order. They even took two very long showers to "remove any contamination". They both drew pictures of what they had seen and found their renderings almost exactly the same. They then tried to recall the events of the previous night but after hearing a buzzing noise during their get away, all they could remember was getting home and nothing in between. They thought hard but all that they could get was Barney saying, "Oh no. Not again."

 

The next morning Betty noticed tears on her dress and a pink powder that would later be tested by five different laboratories over the years. Not one gave a conclusive answer to what the powder was or how it had gotten there. A few weeks past and the Hills stayed quiet until they could not hold their silence any longer. They contacted Dr. Benjamin Simon, a Boston Hypnotist. January 4, 1964 till June 6, 1964, the Hills experienced hypnosis in order to reclaim their lost memories. When these sessions finally ended, a new story emerged from the couple.

 

The strap from the binoculars had been lost when it fell as the couple attempted to make their escape. They made it several miles before Barney felt a strong desire to drive into the woods. When he stopped the car, the humanoids forced the couple onto the ship and took them into two different rooms. The Hills were both undressed and had a number of medical exams performed on them, which included tests on the nervous system, counting of the number of vertebrae they both contained, pulling of teeth and many others. One humanoid even claimed that they were doing this for research on differences between their species and humans. The Hills were then given their clothes back and were escorted back to their car which was now back on the road. When they started to drive Barney said, "Oh no. Not again," to what he thought was the ship returning. It turned out to be the rising sun revealing that five hours had passed. Five hours in which the couple had no recollection of until after hypnosis.

 

Over the years many more cases of alien abduction have occurred. Some present evidence as proof, others that were done by people in poor mental health and some that were made up by someone for their 15 minutes of fame. One of the most common ideas brought up by sceptics is that these people are suffering from False Memory Syndrome - a condition in which the brain takes a person's dreams or fantasies and places them into the long term memory instead of subconscious, for reasons we are still unsure of. If all these accounts are indeed false, then what is the explanation for, radiation sickness in people who couldn't possibly had been exposed to nearly enough, bizarre objects found in peoples bodies, or those unknown flying objects that man has seen in the sky for as long as we have been able to look up?                        

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Spirit Week Review

By Josh Gischner

This year's spirit week had to be the greatest out of the three that I have experienced here at Suffern. We started off the week with a bang on Columbus Day, having a day off, and the week moved along to include halfcourt shots, an extended lunch that we'll never forget, and two amazing pep rallies.

The major goal of Spirit Week is the competition between classes for the Spirit Cup. Sponsored by the United Student Organization (USO), Spirit Week was definitly a success.
The first competition during the week was half court shots. Gym teacher Mr. McNally, along with History Teacher and USO advisor Mr. Gelb, explained the simple rules. USO membership chair Josh Gischner, and member Jared Roth helped keep order. Gelb marked down the only shot made, by student Justin Guzman (Junior), after the "shooting line" was moved closer to the basket as no one could make it from the original line. The juniors were the only class awarded points for this event.

The halfcourt shots were followed by an extended lunch with inflatable rides, popcorn given out by the freshman and sophomore classes, snowcones given out by the junior class, and new this year, cotton candy given out from the seniors. As always, the Gay Straight Alliance Club ran their booth with the very succsessful game, "Pin the Wig on Quig", based on History teacher and GSA advisor Mr. Quigley.

GSA member Carl Denlinger comented, "The GSA booth was awesome. I think we did a great job." Other booths included Aspira, the Art Honor Society doing face painting, the Woman's Issues Group, and the USO selling tickets for the Homecoming Dance, among many others.
The Extended lunch led into Friday (an "8" day) with two pep rallies held in the gym due to bad weather. The marching band, Assistant Principle Mr. Weeks, many teachers, USO advisor Mr Gelb, and the USO board were all present at the two events. The first pep rally was between the ninth and tenth graders during seventh period, and the second between the eleventh and twelth graders durring eighth. The USO board, along with help from various teachers, helped keep the fun going during both events, and helped keep them orderly. Playing for the Spirit Cup, the four grades played classic games such as "tug-of-war," and a new game called the "frozen t-shirt contest". During the later, teams have to "un-freeze" a frozen t-shirt to the point where the player could put it on.

Nearing the end of the Junior and Senior pep rally, Gelb declared the winner to be the Junior class. All the juniors in the room, spilled out of the stands, and trampled over anyone in their way as they cheered for their grade, caryying the Spirit Cup. Class of 2011 President Laura Cohen commented, "We were so thrilled when the juniors won the Spirit Cup! We knew we were capable of it after coming in second place last year to the Class of 2009. Every junior had tons of energy, from those who participated in the pep rally events, to those who wore green and cheered along. The Class of 2011 worked really well together and were full of school spirit.