[London UK, 2006] — The Utne Reader, a national magazine that celebrates the best of the independent press by reading and reprinting from 1,500 independent magazines, newsletters, blogs and more, announces the nomination of The Skeptic magazine for an Utne Independent Press Award in the category of Science/Technology Coverage.
Since 1989 these prestigious awards have showcased the BEST of the independent press in categories ranging from best new title to political, environmental, cultural, and personal life coverage.
“Given that the media landscape is increasingly dominated by the shrill, the shallow, and the corporate-owned, it’s a comfort to know that there are still independent outlets such as The Skeptic Magazine that care about ground breaking journalism, telling engaging stories, and publishing thought-provoking prose. And it’s a pleasure to count you among the best of the best with this Utne Independent Press Award nomination,” said editor David Schimke.
The Skeptic is still the UK’s only regular magazine to take a skeptical look at pseudoscience and claims of the paranormal. Founded in 1987 by science & technology journalist Wendy M. Grossman, the magazine is now edited by Professor Chris French and Victoria Hamilton from Goldsmiths College, University of London. It is a non-profit magazine published quarterly. An invaluable resource for journalists, teachers, psychologists, and inquisitive people of all ages who yearn to discover the truth behind the many extraordinary claims of paranormal and unusual phenomena.
The Utne Independent Press Awards (www.utne.com/uipa) recognize the excellence and vitality of alternative and independent publishing. Utne’s editors select nominee publications through their extensive reading process and careful examination, rather than a competition requiring entry forms and fees. In this way, Utne honours the efforts of small, sometimes unnoticed publications that provide innovative, thought-provoking perspectives often ignored or overlooked by mass media.
About Utne magazine
Utne is the nation’s leading digest of alternative media and has an audience of nearly 600,000. For 20 years, Utne has been bringing readers the “other side of the story” on issues ranging from the environment to the economy and from politics to pop culture. Utne provokes thought and inspires action by offering the best of the independent press as well as original writing. www.utne.com.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 19, Issue 3, from 2008.
The whole question of making complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) available on the NHS seems to be heating up. As someone whose health may at some stage depend on the quality of the NHS, I want that organisation to deliver the best health care possible. As a sceptic, I want it to concentrate on the things that work best. As a taxpayer, I want it to avoid wasting money.
Even with the most soundly evidence-backed treatments those three desires are sometimes going to come into conflict with each other. NHS doctors and trusts have to make tough decisions all the time. Should an 80- year-old alcoholic who smokes and is 50 pounds overweight get a liver transplant? Should a child with leukaemia and a terrible prognosis be given an extremely expensive brand-new experimental treatment because the family wants it and believes it could be successful? How much of a GP’s time should someone who seems to be a hypochondriac be allowed to consume?
These are the kinds of trade-offs that you might pick an economist like Christopher Smallwood to consider, probably along with medical experts. But that wasn’t the question Prince Charles set Smallwood. Instead, he asked him (and a team at FreshMinds, for whom I am, coincidentally, working on something else) to look into the benefits of deploying CAM within the NHS, considering both cost and medical benefits. Studies show that research tends to produce the results that the person paying for it wants, and so it proved in this case: Smallwood’s eventual report concluded that certain types of CAM could indeed both save the NHS money and help patients. It recommends further study (a slight Yes, Minister moment there: you can always safely recommend further study).
The report doesn’t, of course, suggest that all CAM was created equal, nor that the NHS should get rid of its orthodox medical treatments. What it does say is that the literature shows that acupuncture, herbalism, chiropractic, and homeopathy might be able to help plug “effectiveness gaps” in the NHS such as managing pain and nausea from chemotherapy and surgery, arthritis, asthma, lower back pain, and so on. And it makes some specific cost comparisons. For example, the average weekly cost of anti-depressants is £13.82 per prescription for a total cost to the NHS in 2004 of £400 million. By contrast, a weekly course of St. John’s Wort costs 82p. The report adds that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs cost the NHS £247 million in 2004 (average £11.82 per prescription), while phytodolor costs 45p per week.
Whatever anyone thinks about it, CAM is growing. The report quotes surveys that suggest that the proportion of general practices in England offering some access to CAM has grown from around 40 percent ten years ago to around 50 percent by 2001 and is still growing.
Exactly which therapies are offered varies, of course: about 33 percent offered acupuncture (either directly or through referral), 21 percent homeopathy, 23 percent manipulation therapies. There is considerable geographic disparity in availability.
Given how much discussion CAM gets, it surprised me to read how small its research funds are. It commands 0.08 percent of the NHS research budget. In 2003, it got only 0.3 percent of the research budget from medical charities (a figure the report sources to Professor Edzard Ernst, at Exeter). The government itself provides no “ringfenced” funding for CAM research.
When I began reading the report, I thought it seemed entirely reasonable. It’s not arguable that there are large areas of misery in human physical life that the NHS doesn’t address well: anyone who has (or has relatives who have) a host of things, mostly not life-threatening –allergies or eczema, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, back pain, depression – has come up against those limits. People turn to CAM out of frustration and desperation, and sometimes it’s harmless and sometimes it helps, if only because the practitioner gives attention. It’s not as if the report, or the Prince, were proposing that homeopathy was a better treatment for cancer.
But on closer examination… you’d think that an economist might know to point out that one reason for these cost discrepancies is the cost structure and business model that prevail in the pharmaceutical industry. Many modern anti-depressants are still under patent, driving their prices up; herbal remedies are more like generic drugs, where multiple manufacturers in competition drive the prices down. It’s absurd to think that the pharmaceutical companies would fail to react to any threat that the NHS would begin to prescribe herbal competitors in such a way as to reduce the nation’s drug bill substantially: we spend £8 billion a year on prescription drugs.
The other reason, of course, is that CAM isn’t being held to the same “gold standard” (the report’s term) of research as orthodox medicine. Double-blind safety and efficacy testing aren’t a plot by those companies to block CAM. If there were anyone who wished the testing were less onerous and less expensive, it’s Big Pharma. There is no law of nature that says that CAM remedies have to be cheaper. The job an economist could usefully have done is telling us how much CAM would cost after it had been put through the mainstream mill.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 19, Issue 3, from 2008.
Each of the Davis family members’ recollections seemed to spark still more accounts of other apparently unconnected and as yet unreported incidents. It was as if each person had for years harbored an odd memory or two, and until I began asking questions along lines that I knew from past experience could be fruitful no one assumed that these memories were possibly significant…
BUDD HOPKINS, INTRUDERS, P. 20
Accounts of alien abductions are rarely given unprompted. In most documented cases memories of abductions were repressed, either by the abductees themselves, or more commonly by the aliens. This unfortunate situation means that testimony about such events must be elicited through prompting and suggestions put by the interviewer, most likely under hypnosis, a situation that heightens the potential for the distortion of recall.
Consequently, care needs to be taken to ensure that recall owes more to the memory traces of abductees, rather than the preconceptions and weaknesses in investigative technique of the interviewers. In particular, interviewers need to be aware of the process of suggestion and the potential creation of false memories.
Many writers on alien abduction often make confident assertions about the fact that psychological explanations cannot account for their findings, or amazingly that subjects were not leadable (e.g., David Jacobs, p. 323). This then leads them to the position that the tales they obtain from abductees must be true, since other alternative explanations are inadequate. For example, Hopkins (p. 30) writes:
Now after investigating this sort of abduction account, the researcher ultimately has to take one of three basic positions. First, he can decide that the witness is a liar, a deliberate hoaxer. Second, he can conclude that the witness is somehow deluded, that the experience did not take place but instead was some kind of psychological aberration. The third and only other option is that the witness’s account is an honest attempt to remember an actual event.
Such reasoning has to be interpreted as an “honest attempt” to understand how it is possible that alleged abductees could provide such an incredible wealth of detail about supposedly fictitious events. Herein lies some of the problem in dismissing the abduction accounts out of hand, the sheer quantity of testimony does seem to suggest that there must be some truth to what is being reported.
Setting aside outright deceit and psychological problems, it seems too far-fetched to believe that otherwise honest individuals might actually simply be making this all up in response to questions put to them by interviewers. In order to understand how this might be possible we can begin by asking the following question.
Is red heavier than yellow?
After your initial confusion, how might you go about answering this question?
You might try looking around your room to identify a red and a yellow object. Finding a thick textbook with a red cover and a slim paperback with a yellow cover, you could answer the question “Yes”, and when prompted as to “Why?” add that “The red book is heavier than the yellow book”.
Alternatively, finding no obvious clues in the immediate environment, you could draw on general knowledge for an answer. Once again, red is heavier, this time “because it is a denser colour”.
Finding and justifying an answer to this question isn’t difficult. Drawing on either contextual cues (things in our immediate environment), or general knowledge we can readily provide an answer and then offer reasoning in support of it.
The only problem is that the question is essentially meaningless. The entire exchange, with its initial question (“Is red heavier than yellow?”), response (“Yes”), request for verification (“Why?”) and justification (“The red book is heavier than the yellow book”), proceeds successfully in that questions are asked and answered in a seemingly appropriate and coherent way.
However, the fact that the interviewee was able to respond to the questions does not mean that the initial question was coherent or meaningful, nor does it mean that the interviewee has any confidence in their answers or that such answers should be viewed as “accurate”. Yet, the interviewer may well believe that the initial question was meaningful, a view reinforced by the apparently appropriate nature of the interviewee’s response. Doubts about the latter would only emerge if the justification were entirely irrelevant to the question, such as “Half-past three”, or “Belgium” (noting that with a little effort even these answers could be construed as meaningful).
The fact that interviewers may be asking questions that are essentially meaningless, but nevertheless capable of eliciting responses, is a problem that has dogged child psychology in recent decades. Adult interviewers had devised tests of children’s abilities with the assumption that a child’s understanding of a question (or set of instructions), matched that of the interviewer, thereby producing a meaningful assessment of knowledge or competency.
Unfortunately, there was often a significant divergence in understanding, a problem that for many years went unnoticed because the behaviour of children in interviews and testing situations was contextually appropriate. A few children may have burst into tears, frozen, or otherwise failed to perform, but most behaved in a manner that reassured the interviewer, or experimenter, that they had the knack of dealing with children and more importantly, that their study was producing valid data. The possibility that carefully planned out studies, possibly involving hundreds of children might be fundamentally flawed, was undoubtedly too remote for serious consideration.
The question “Is red heavier than yellow?” was originally put to children aged between 5 and 9 years of age by psychologists Hughes and Grieve (1980; UFO investigators might like to ponder the equally valid alternative “Is grey heavier than green?”). They also asked other questions, including, “Is milk bigger than water?” and “One day there were two flies were crawling up a wall. Which fly got to the top first?”. The questions were deliberately designed to be bizarre and essentially meaningless.
The study showed that despite these apparent limitations children had little difficulty in answering them. Most importantly, the study showed that children did not simply guess or randomly offer answers to the questions. Instead, drawing on contextual cues and general knowledge they offered coherent, reasoned answers.
Children’s ability to answer questions or follow instructions goes beyond the ability to make sense of the bizarre, they can even respond to questions completely devoid of any meaning, such as when non-existent words are used. This was demonstrated by Carey (1978), who placed a small puppet, a glass and a jar of water in front of young children.
The children were initially given instructions to “give the puppet more water to drink”, which they did by pouring water from the jar into the glass. They were then asked to “give the puppet less water to drink”, which they did by pouring water from the glass to the jar. They were also asked to “give the puppet tiv water to drink”, which they did by either pouring water from the glass to the jar or vice versa. The children, who used contextual cues to override the ambiguity of the spoken instructions, ignored the fact that the request had no meaning.
The situation dictated that something had to be done with the glass, the jar and the puppet. The number of possible actions was thus relatively small. Placed in a confusing situation the children acted on the basis of what they thought the question meant rather than its literal interpretation. Such behaviour goes beyond single sentence answers. It is possible to elicit complete stories (such as the witch that flew through their room last night), with the minimum of prompting.
While one might readily accept that children will respond in such a way to bizarre questions, what of adults? Surely they would not behave in such a way. A follow-up to the Hughes and Grieve (1980) study carried out in Australia by Pratt (1991) included samples of children and adults. Amazingly, the adults behaved in a way similar to that of children, initially puzzled, and then readily offering reasoned responses that showed the same underlying structure as the answers of children. You might want to try this out on your friends or colleagues. It is interesting to find that adults often tend to be even more elaborate than children in how they answer such questions, for example, sometimes treating the questions as philosophical debates. Clearly, as adults we do not lose our ability to respond to bizarre questions, if anything, we improve on this skill.
These studies offer some important messages for abduction researchers. For example, it is apparent that any question, no matter how badly phrased or incoherent it may seem, will elicit a response, one that will be reasoned and relevant. In an interview, few people will refuse to reply and the answers they give will be easily interpreted within the interviewer’s existing frame of reference.
The field of child psychology has been heavily affected by such discoveries, with researchers subsequently devising more reliable methodologies, ever watchful as to the possibility that questions might be misinterpreted and thus not tapping the knowledge or abilities they were intended for.
The findings have also had considerable impact on law enforcement procedures, where new questioning techniques for both witnesses and suspects have been developed to ensure that accurate testimony is elicited. Police officers and child psychologists shared a common ground in that both assumed that suggestibility was a characteristic present only in interviewees, ignoring their own culpability in generating the image of overly suggestible and compliant witnesses.
For example, interviewers’ sceptical of children’s abilities will typically repeat questions that have elicited a response in order to check the child’s competency. However, young children interpret such repeated questioning as indicating that their earlier answer was incorrect, or unacceptable, causing them to modify it to please the interviewer. This of course vindicates the sceptical interviewer, who now has the proof that children cannot be trusted, little realising that they caused this apparent problem.
It is important to note that subjects are not lying when they respond to meaningless questions. They are making an honest attempt to answer the question, but will show little confidence in their responses, readily modifying them in response to feedback from the interviewer. It is also important to recognise that very few interviewers will ever spot such a process.
Even when listening to recordings of their own interviews, most will fail to realise the ambiguities in their questions, possibly arguing that any flaws in question form were of little consequence as the interviewee understood the intention of question (as with many child psychologists), as evidenced by the appropriate nature of their response. Take for example David Jacobs and his interview with Lynn Miller (Secret Life, p. 314):
DJ: Why do you think he might want that? LM: He needs babies…. DJ: When he says he wants you to have babies, can you get a sense of why he needs babies? LM: No. DJ: Can you get a sense of what he’s going to do with the babies? LM: They need them for work? DJ: For work? LM: Yes. DJ: You mean they’re growing babies to be workers? LM: Yes. DJ: How can you get a sense of that? LM: I just get a sense of it.
Secret Life, p. 314
This type of questioning bears a strong similarity to the process observed with the earlier “bizarre” questions. Initially Lynn denies having any sense of why babies might be required, yet seconds later a coherent purpose is forthcoming, which the interviewer probably takes as validating the initial line of questioning. Just as sceptical interviewers can destroy the credibility of witnesses, overly credulous interviewers can boost apparent credibility.
As with the children described earlier, respondents are not lying when answering such questions, merely trying to make sense of the questions they are asked. After all, what could possibly be any more bizarre than asking a person a question such as “Were you abducted by aliens?” The ability to answer such a question and provide accompanying details does not tell us anything about the reality of a person’s experiences.
Both children and adults draw on contextual cues and general knowledge for answers. This undoubtedly explains why so many aspects of alien abduction stories have decidedly terrestrial origins, with many aspects of abduction tales having their origins in science fiction stories, including the now obligatory wraparound eyes found in aliens which can be traced back to Barney Hill’s viewing of an episode of The Outer Limits (see Kottmeyer, 1994).
In other words, general knowledge gives us a certain range of behaviours that could be used when describing an alien abduction scenario. How might this work? The most obvious starting point is the question “Why are they here?” Popular options might be to invade, to learn, or to communicate. Each abduction author favours one of these initial premises and elicits testimony that supports their beliefs. Regrettably this tells us more about the authors than it does about any possible alien contact.
From each of these initial premises a simple series of sub-themes becomes available. If we chose the invasion theme, then we need to explain why there aren’t Independence Day-type sightings over major cities. Obviously the invasion is more covert, perhaps the invaders fear our technology, and perhaps their numbers are small. We pick one such option, which then leads to a new set of choices in our narrative, and carry on in this fashion until we have a coherent description of an alien invasion plan.
Inventing a complete narrative in such a fashion is relatively easy, something even very young children have mastered. Clearly such stories are inventions, created to fill the demands of the interview situation. There is thus a fourth alternative that Hopkins and others might like to consider. It is that interviewers, perhaps unintentionally and probably unknowingly, fashion tales of alien abductions through the process of suggestion.
The interviewing context they create, with its pseudo-therapeutic overtones, together with a staggering succession of inappropriate and leading questions will almost inevitably create a detailed account of an entirely fictitious experience.
References
Carey, S. (1978). Less never means more. In Campbell, R.N. and Smith, P.T. (Eds.) Recent Advances in the Psychology of Language. London: Plenum.
Hopkins, B. (1987). Intruders. New York: Ballantine Books.
Hughes, M., & Grieve, R. (1980). On asking children bizarre questions. First Language, 1, 149-160.
Jacobs, D. M. (1992). Secret Life: Firsthand Documented Accounts of UFO Abductions. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Kottmeyer, M. (1994). The eyes that spoke. Skeptical Briefs (September).
Pratt, C. (1991). On asking children – and adults – bizarre questions. First Language, 10, 167-175.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 3, from 2008
The 60th anniversary of the birth of UFOlogy has come and gone and the truth remains, as always, still out there. Proclamations about “the death of UFOlogy” are premature as the subject continually regenerates itself either by the creation of new submyths (e.g., crop circles, ancient astronauts) or via the injection of new generations of eager believers inspire by new TV programmes and films. It would be more accurate to say that public interest in UFOs tends to wax and wane in response to media coverage. Nevertheless, despite the best efforts of the UFO industry, classic cases such as Rendlesham now appear to be a thing of the past. As a result, the discourse of UFOlogy – today largely conducted online – is focussed upon the obsessive re-examination of a tiny number of historical cases that are regarded by proponents as being most evidential in terms of providing proof of extraterrestrial visits.
Last year’s anniversary provided an opportunity to resurrect two key pillars of the UFO legend – alien abductions and government cover-ups. Six decades have passed since Kenneth Arnold’s sighting in June 1947 ushered in the age of the flying saucer, but it was the event that occurred in New Mexico just days afterwards that has since been crowned “the most important case in UFO history.” Since it was ‘rediscovered’ in the 1970s, the Roswell incident has spawned an entire cottage industry and its various elements now dominate UFOlogical discourse, particularly in North America.
2007 was for many UFO diehards the 60th anniversary not of Kenneth Arnold’s sighting but of Roswell. This opportunity has provided a handy vehicle for two of the case’s stalwarts, Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt, to publish the fruits of their research. Their book, Witness to Roswell, subtitled “unmasking the 60-year cover-up” was published to coincide with the carnival that has become an integral part of the little town’s economy. As the title suggests, this book is a compendium of testimonies from people who say they witnessed some aspect of the saucer crash and its aftermath. The authors claim all these stories describe a flying saucer and alien bodies; none of them talk about a Mogul balloon. What they fail to mention is that they date not from 1947, but from a period after 1980. It was then that the Roswell base intelligence officer, Jesse Marcel, came forward with his version of the story. Another key participant, USAF Capt. Sheridan Cavitt, who was present at the crash site with Marcel, told an air force investigator in 1993 the objects he collected were part of a balloon trail. But to conspiracists like Carey and Schmitt, Cavitt’s evidence is worthless. He is painted as a Government stooge and as such his story is all part of the cover-up. Jesse Marcel’s account is, in contrast, a UFOlogist’s dream. It appears that in 1947, in the aftermath of the flying saucer craze, he came to believe the wreckage he saw came from a spaceship.
The stories that have emerged since 1980, including those that describe alien bodies, have all been influenced by Marcel’s account, hyped by the vivid imaginations of UFOlogists. The ‘new’ testimonies are not contemporary evidence or ‘oral histories’ as Carey and Schmitt would have us believe. They were mostly collected between 30 and 60 years after the events they purport to describe and as such are examples of contemporary legend. One typical example, chosen at random, begins:
… after the Unsolved Mysteries [TV broadcast on Roswell in 1989] … a former cancer ward nurse from the St Petersburg Hospital in Florida came forward to describe the final testimony she personally heard from one of her patients. The nurse was Mary Ann Gardner, who worked at the hospital from 1976 to 1977. The patient, a woman (Gardner couldn’t remember her name), had been alone in the hospital. Feeling concern for her because she had no visitors, Gardner spent as much time as she could listening to the woman’s stories – especially the one about the crashed ship and the ‘little men’ she had seen…
In the absence of any real hard evidence, Roswell’s promoters rely upon this type of second- and thirdhand testimony along with death-bed confessions, many extracted literally from beyond the grave, as living witnesses who actually remember the incident are now scarce indeed. With each passing year ‘new’ witnesses have to be found to keep the Roswell bandwagon on the road. Chief among them is the testimony of Walter Haut, the press officer at Roswell Army Air base in 1947. It was Haut who, on the orders of the base commander, Col. William Blanchard, sent out the famous press release that announced to the world how the US Army Air Force had recovered a flying saucer from a remote desert ranch. The initial excitement was dampened within hours by the announcement that the ‘flying disc’ had been identified as a lowly weather balloon. For some, this is where the cover-up began, or where the seeds of a modern myth were planted.
UFOlogists have pursued Haut and other surviving Roswell veterans for decades. When Haut insisted he knew nothing, they concluded he wasn’t ready to break his oath of silence. If they waited long enough, they might find what they wanted, and so it has turned out. In 1993 Haut signed an affidavit to the effect that although he had not personally seen the Roswell debris, he had become “convinced that the material recovered was some type of craft from outer space”. This implies his sincere belief was based not upon what he knew was fact, but what he subsequently heard from others, such as Jesse Marcel and the assorted UFOlogists who befriended him. Carey and Schmitt save what they appear to believe is their trump card until the end of this book. In 2002 an elderly Haut signed a second affidavit that his family stipulated was not to be made public until after his death. Haut died in 2005 at the age of 83. The ‘new’ statement, published to coincide with the 60th anniversary hype, contradicts the earlier account. In 1993 he was clear that he had not personally seen any wreckage. But in 2002 this story had changed. Now he had personally handled the debris at a meeting attended by Marcel, Blanchard and his boss Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, where the cover-up was first hatched. Furthermore, despite the extreme secrecy and ‘need to know’ that surrounded the crash Blanchard took Haut – a mere press officer – for a peek at the saucer and the bodies of its occupants hidden inside a hangar. The famous press release was a Pentagon-inspired tactic to divert attention from a second crash site, where the clean-up operation was taking place.
For those who buy into the Roswell conspiracy, Haut’s story has provided more grist to the mill. But a number of UFOlogists who believe a flying saucer did crash in New Mexico have cast doubt upon the authenticity of the new affadavit. UFO pundit Frank Warren has revealed how in 2000, when an elderly Haut agreed to be interviewed on video, he was confused and contradicted himself frequently. He could not remember where he did his basic training, or even where he was stationed during the war. To Warren, this was clearly an elderly man who was exhibiting signs of dementia. On four separate occasions during the interview Haut says he “didn’t see anything” and he “just wrote a press release.” On another occasion, when asked by interviewer Larry King on national TV if he “had ever seen any of the wreckage”, Haut replied “No.”
Yet we are now asked to believe that a couple of years later this same man was capable of writing a meticulously clear, concise account of handling the wreckage of a spaceship, to the extent that he was able to recall the approximate time of staff meetings and phone conversations. More details emerged when one of the Witness to Roswell co-authors was interviewed for an internet podcast. During the discussion, Don Schmit revealed that Haut did not personally write the affidavit, which is usually a sworn statement made in writing under oath. Rather it was “prepared, it [was] based on things that Walter told us in confidence for a number of years” and when he felt ready to do it “his doctor, had given us the go-ahead that he mentally was totally competent.” Schmitt added that Haut read the document a number of times, then signed it with three witnesses present. So rather than providing the ‘smoking gun’ sought by the UFOlogists, the Haut affidavit turns out to be just another dead end.
Despite such shaky foundations, Roswell retains its central position in the UFO mythology. For many the future credibility of the subject now rests entirely on the evidence for this one case. Carey and Schmitt justify their obsessive interest by claiming it is the only UFO incident that can provide physical proof of ET visitations, if only the cover-up could be exposed. Unfortunately, based upon the contents of this book they are chasing a chimera of their own construction; one based upon self-delusion and self-deception. Those who believe the US Government has successfully concealed wreckage and bodies from a crashed flying saucer for 60 years will accept nothing less than total disclosure of what they see as undeniable fact. For them, the Roswell incident cannot be disproved, only proved. One outcome of the anniversary is clear: belief in Roswell is now a matter of faith which puts the alleged ‘facts’ beyond all rational discussion or examination.
The Story of Betty and Barney Hill
Of more interest to the general reader are two books that seek to throw new light on that other foundation stone of the UFO mythology – alien abductions. Public fascination with the abduction craze is now in decline after reaching its high-water mark during the 90s. A number of its proponents have since moved on or found new outlets for their interests in channelling, contactee cults and New Age beliefs. The lack of any convincing proof and a number of devastating, carefully-argued academic studies, such as those by Susan Clancy, have taken their toll on the credibility of the abduction industry. In ten or twenty years’ time, I predict we will be looking back upon alien abductions as just another UFO fad, which had its day and came and went.
Nevertheless, the 60th anniversary of the birth of the modern UFO enigma provided an opportunity for a collection of authorities, representing all parts of the spectrum of belief and disbelief, to revisit the seminal account that sparked the modern obsession with extraterrestrial kidnappings. The story of Betty and Barney Hill, a mixed-race couple from New Hampshire, has been picked apart in thousands of books and articles. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the details, it began one night in September 1961 when the couple were returning home from holiday in Canada. Whilst driving through the deserted White Mountains they saw a brightly lit UFO that appeared to follow them. At one stage Barney, who was driving, stopped the car and watched the UFO through binoculars. Behind a row of windows he saw a group of humanoid figures watching him and, believing they were about to be captured, he drove off in a panic. Soon afterwards the couple were confronted by the UFO and its occupants who were now blocking the road. The next thing the Hills consciously recalled was an odd beeping noise; they were aware of being on a road 35 miles further south and eventually returned home two hours later than expected. Betty subsequently experienced a series of disturbing dreams where she and Barney were abducted by the crew of the UFO. In 1964 they were both hypnotically regressed by a Boston psychiatrist, Dr Benjamin Simon, and their stories recorded. Their accounts of what transpired during the period of ‘missing time’ appeared to match Betty’s dreams in significant places. Details emerged of a medical examination and a lengthy conversation between Betty and the ‘leader’ of the alien crew. In 1966 the story was published by journalist John Fuller in his bestselling book, The Interrupted Journey, that was widely syndicated. The Hills became overnight celebrities and their narrative – with its key motifs of ‘missing time’, abduction and medical examination – became the template for all future alien abduction stories.
Betty and Barney Hill and their dog
If you only have the patience to read one of the two new revisitations of the Hill’s story, Encounters at Indian Head should be your choice. It is by far the superior work. Scholarly in tone and reflecting a range of informed viewpoints, it will become the key text on the case for future generations of researchers. The book is an edited collection of papers prepared following a private symposium that was held in September 2000 at Indian Head, New Hampshire, close to the rural area where Betty and Barney’s encounter with their UFO occurred in September 1961. Editors Karl Pflock and Peter Brookesmith shared a long-term fascination with the Hill story, whilst holding diametrically opposed views on its reality status. While Brookesmith, along with Hilary Evans and Martin Kottmeyer take a sceptical, psychosocial approach, Pflock – the author of a devastating deconstruction of the Roswell myth – appears to play devil’s advocate. He believes only a literal interpretation of the Hill’s story, where the couple are kidnapped by aliens from Zeta Reticuli, fits all of the known facts. #
The strength of Encounters at Indian Head is that hidden somewhere within this polarity of viewpoints, readers can ultimately divine their own version of the ‘truth’. In an appendix, Martin Kottmeyer puts the finishing touches to his argument that the Hill’s experience was a product of the human imagination fashioned from the raw materials of popular culture – the books and films the Hills had seen and absorbed, consciously and unconsciously, before their ‘experience’. All the contributors bring something new to the table, but the consolidated version of the case compiled by Dennis Stacy’s literature search makes it clear the story is actually far stranger than the standard account repeated in the UFO literature. The sociologist and veteran anomalist Marcello Truzzi chaired the symposium and contributed an insightful analysis of contrasting approaches to the Hill’s experience.
Both Truzzi and Pflock died before the book was completed, so it stands as a monument to their and Betty Hill’s input. Barney Hill died in 1969 and Betty went on to become a serial UFO spotter; she died from lung cancer in 2004. Despite her slow transition to cult leader and contactee, she had little time for the amateur abduction researchers who were busily finding new ‘victims’ of the nefarious greys. As we have seen in the case of Roswell, the UFO industry is reluctant to let go of its sacred cows. It was inevitable that Brookesmith and Pflock’s erudite re-examination of the Hill case would provoke a reaction from those who see the Hill abduction as a central pillar of their beliefs and careers.
In contrast to Encounters, Captured! comes across as largely a vehicle for Stanton Friedman and assorted friends to defend this particular UFO Alamo to the last. Sadly, Friedman’s presence here ruins what would have been an intimate and largely neutral insight into the Hill’s private lives by Kathy Marden, Betty’s niece and the trustee of her estate. Marden was a teenager when the Hill’s experience occurred and she has grown up alongside her aunt’s increasingly weird stories. As an adult she became a UFO investigator herself and as such she is clearly not the most objective person to assess the reality, or otherwise, of the story she does her best to chronicle here. Marden is billed as co-author but much of the content of this book appears to be written by her. Her unique collection of papers and correspondence, some of which are reproduced in a lengthy appendix, add a mass of new information to what is known about the Hill’s ordinary lives and the extraordinary events that transformed them.
Friedman’s role seems to be to provide a celebrity name and selling point. His contribution is fortunately confined to a boorish and poorly-argued chapter that attacks ‘noisy negativists’ who appear to include just about anyone who does not accept his literal interpretation of the Hill’s experience. This comes across as a hectoring polemic that is badly out of place in the context of Marden’s careful and, in places, uncomfortable examination of Betty Hill’s strange life.
While neither book provides the reader with a complete answer to what happened to the couple that fateful night in September 1961, both provide valuable contributions to the literature of this complex and intractable case. We may never find a satisfying and comprehensive solution to the Hill’s experiences, but these books demonstrate how we are finally beginning to ask the right questions about their ultimate meaning.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 19, Issue 3, from 2008.
I am spending a few weeks in rural France at the moment and, while on a bike ride a few days ago, came across an almost perfect circle of flattened wheat, measuring perhaps three metres in diameter.
“What could be the cause of this?” I asked myself, “Alien spacecraft, soil fungus, earth energies, magnetic vortices or rutting hedgehogs rotating in unison?”
Yes, this sent my mind wandering back rather nostalgically to the heyday of the crop circle in the late 1980s and early 1990s when beautiful crop formations (the word circles no longer did them justice) appeared regularly on the national news both in the UK and overseas whilst various “experts” (from whom all of the above possible explanations originated) were called upon to comment on their origins.
Although crop circles continue to appear in the fields of Wiltshire and elsewhere, media interest has declined almost to zero, which is a shame as some of the more recent designs are extremely complex and very beautiful.
The crop circle phenomenon is one which, in my view, would be an excellent topic for a PhD thesis in sociology or psychology – and, for all I know, maybe such a thesis has already been written – as it provoked (and continues to provoke) interesting behavioural traits in individuals and groups of people.
When they first made it into the newspapers, crop circles really did seem to be a phenomenon worthy of scientific investigation. The circles in those days, however, consisted simply of individual circles of flattened crop, measuring thirty feet or more in diameter. And it seemed perfectly reasonable to speculate that the answer to the mystery of their origin may lie in animal behaviour or unusual atmospheric phenomena.
Of the various self-styled experts of the period, of whom Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado and Terrence Meaden were perhaps the best known, in my mind it was the latter, with his Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, who retained plausibility the longest.
Having seen films of developing twisters reaching down from the clouds, it didn’t seem impossible to me that a suitably static weather system over a cornfield could touch the ground and then recede, leaving a perfect circle of twisted corn. Vortices still seemed at least vaguely plausible when the first double formation was observed in 1980 but I intellectually parted company with the anomalous weather theorists in the following years when a profusion of multiple formations appeared. Yes, I could imagine that stable systems of vortices might exist and that they might give rise to the observed linked crop circle formations, but why would such systems have suddenly started up in the early 1980s only when the media’s attention was focused on the phenomenon? An early result of global warming, perhaps?
From this point onwards, as multiple circle formations grew connecting rings and lines, finally mutating into the complex pictographs of the 1990s, for me the possibility of an explanation that did not involve intelligent design receded to zero.
And this is where things get interesting from a psychological and sociological point of view as, in general, people with a scientific and sceptical mindset attributed the intelligence implicit in the designs to human agencies (even before the Doug and Dave hoaxing confession in 1992) whereas those with a more “spiritual” outlook started looking for answers in non-human intelligences resident in our cosmos who are trying, rather cryptically, to communicate with us.
The more complex and cryptic the formations became, the more the sceptics were convinced that they were all due to hoaxers, or conceptual artists (or whatever the appropriate term should be).
From the point of view of the “cerealogists”, however, the complexity was a clear indication that alien or cosmic intelligences were at work. This is a difficult gap to bridge as it depends on belief systems in both cases.
I guess I am correct in saying that in the opinion of most sceptics, all of the complex crop formations are hoaxed. However, even when the vast majority are proved to be hoaxed (and many croppies now accept this) it does not convince the devotee that there are not also “genuine” circles. For instance, cerealogist Paul Vignay writes in his online Enigma magazine:
Hoaxers on the other hand MUST be able to prove that ALL formations are hoaxes, for it is they that claim the subject is a hoax […] I have already stated that we know that some, possibly even a lot of crop circles are hoaxes. However, you only need a single genuine formation for there to be a genuine phenomenon.”
Perhaps even more difficult to deal with as an argument is the idea that even the hoaxed circles may, in some cosmic way be genuine:
Did the hoaxers pick up an energy form already present, and vectored the information onto a piece of paper.
Hoaxers’ brains being affected (without their knowing) by structured energy fields put in place by cosmic intelligences. Wow! Try arguing that one away in the pub.
In the meantime, although they no longer feature much in our newspapers, I would recommend looking on the web at some of the really beautiful “Mayan” crop formations that intelligences somewhere in our Universe are creating in the fields of southern England.
One of the people on the Skeptics in the Pub mailing list, Partha Lal, sent a note to me asking me to publicise a firewalk he was doing for charity.
I checked out the charity, which seemed worthy enough (the charity is Haven House, a children’s hospice. (It’s still not too late to donate some money for Partha’s walk! Send him an email with details of your donation). I duly published the details of the event in a mail. A few days before the event, Partha told me that people could join in for a modest price, and being someone interested in new experiences, I decided to do the firewalk.
I was quite terrified, if truth be told, for several days before the event. Although I’m a pyromaniac and love to watch flames, I’m terrified of being burned (is this normal?) and while I knew, in my head, all about the thermal conductivity of ash and so on, I still found the build-up psychologically challenging.
Nonetheless, as with all deeply dreaded or anticipated events, the day of judgement drew nigh. So I set out along the A406 towards Woodford in North London filled with trepidation.
I arrived early (as the organisers had requested) and got chatting with some of the other participants and spectators. I was quite surprised when one of the other participants mentioned that if you stopped breathing during the walk, you’d be burned. I asked how your breathing could affect heat on your feet, and the person said, “Well, that’s what I’d heard”. Many of the other participants seemed quite tense and quite a few nervous jokes were exchanged around the delightfully insensitive barbecue.
Well, time passed and the “Guinness World Record Holder” Tony Cole arrived. He gave embodiment to the phrase “small but perfectly formed” and was wearing more beads than Bead Boy who has worked in the bead display industry for 50 years. Terry had “Positive Mental Attitude” written across his chest in big gold letters, and since his most recent World Record was tossing a pancake more than 8,000 times in one hour he must have had at least enough Positive Mental Attitude to stop himself going stark staring mad with boredom.
Terry and his mate Andy Johnston were going to train us to get us ready for our firewalk. Andy was obviously the brains behind the operation. To get us in the mood for our dangerous ordeal, Terry broke some chopsticks on this throat, and a helper smashed a wooden broom handle across Terry’s arm. Andy just stood at the back with his big Ying Yang necklace and looked spiritual. Andy told us Terry could do these things because he (Terry, but Andy as well) had loads of Chi, and they would train us to have masses of Chi too, so we wouldn’t be burned by the “thousands of degrees” of heat in the fire.
But first, we had to build the pyre. I felt this was a bit like asking someone to bring their own rope to their hanging, but we all dutifully trooped down into the grounds where a pit had been marked out by some turf and sticks. We respectfully carried bits of wood from a pile and made a circle. Andy exhorted us to make a wish as we laid our log, and being the heartless skeptic I am I wished that the next lottery ticket I buy will win Division One (always a good idea to make wishes specific and testable in my view).
Following more stacking, plenty of kindling and the finishing touch of two bottles of cooking oil, our bonfire was complete. Terry and his un-named helper decided to light the fire with their fire-breathing act. This worked rather well, and after a few mouthfuls of paraffin the fire was blazing merrily.
We all then wandered back to the house to learn about Chi.
Now that the moment was getting closer, and we could all see the big, hot, very red conflagration outside the window, we were all quite nervous. Andy helped by telling us how horrifically dangerous what we were about to do was. He went on and on about how hot the fire was, and how people had been burned by not following his instructions. He ratcheted the drama up by saying that he didn’t know if he himself would be doing the walk… if he didn’t feel the Chi flowing, he wouldn’t walk. The emphasised again and again the necessity of following his directions, to the letter. So, what were his important instructions?
We had to “keep breathing”. That was pretty much it. He wound it up with a load of mystical nonsense about Chi and energy centres and rubbish like that, but he made us do lots of breathing exercises. Now these exercises had a very important point. The biggest obstacle we would face was fear. Andy told us on numerous occasions that if we felt like we couldn’t do it, we shouldn’t. He did not force or coerce anyone, and that was good. The breathing of course helps calm us down… it’s a tactic I always use when I’m anxious. But his reasons why the breathing was so important were spurious to say the least.
We learned that “science couldn’t explain firewalking”. Andy told us that apparently scientists just said it was “mind over matter” and left it at that. Also, the ancient Indian writings said everything was made of the same material, and because “Quantum Physics says the very same thing” then that was utter vindication for all the Indian mystics down through the ages who had been ridiculed by the West! This was relevant because according to the “Chi” theory, the fire and our feet are made of the same substance. The Chi in our feet would “tune” us to the fire and stop us getting burned.
Andy also performs healing with his Chi, something he didn’t know he could do because he was a “hardened sceptic”. He only found out about his healing power because he did firewalking… the event was going to be as momentous for us as it had been for him. Andy had discovered that his Chi comes out (or goes in, I couldn’t work it out) a hole in his head. Also, he said that his hole was in a different place to other people’s holes. Note, he’s not referring to his mouth or nose or ear, you know, the familiar holes… Andy was referring to a hole on the crown of his head. Hmmm. I didn’t know we had a hole there. Never mind. No one else in the audience found this the slightest bit unusual. Andy had so much Chi, that he would be sending extra Chi to each of us as we walked.
I was behaving myself very well, I’d only sniggered a couple of times (especially at the “hardened sceptic” statement) but I don’t think anyone had noticed. I deliberately hadn’t been doing the exercises with the group, because I knew that I didn’t need to use Chi to make my way across the coals, but then Andy asked, “Does anyone think this is complete nonsense?” I just had to put my hand up. Andy asked me why I thought it was rubbish. I said that we wouldn’t get burned for quite straightforward reasons, you know, to do with thermal conductivity and so on. I said we didn’t need his Chi or any of his mystical mumbo-jumbo. I said quite categorically that he was forbidden to send me any extra Chi as I walked, and that I wouldn’t be using Chi (if it’s possible to deliberately not use an imaginary thing) and that I would definitely not be burned. Andy seemed quite shocked that someone was prepared to challenge him, but he said that it wasn’t mystical at all. I said if that really were the case that he believed that his feet were tuned to the fire with the Chi, he should put some iron in the fire and then walk on that. He wasn’t too keen to give that a try…
I was quiet and well behaved for the rest of the seminar. People asked questions: some sensible: “Should I run?” (no), “What will it feel like?” (walking on eggshells); some daft: “Should I make the Chi go to my feet, or is feeling it in my fingers OK?” (you should make it go into your feet, but it doesn’t matter if you can only feel it in your fingers).
That was Andy finished, and then Terry came in and did some amazing work to psyche us up. Andy had promised us the best experience of our lives: a truly death-defying spectacular that only Gods or those with magic could hope to complete and survive… all that left me rather cold; I knew anyone could do it… training or not, the only difficulty was getting over the initial fear factor. Terry however did a very good job just before we went down of getting our adrenaline going and hyping us all right up. We all took our shoes off, and then had to put them back on again for the walk down.
So, the time was upon us. We all walked off down towards the spectators huddled around an ominously glowing bed of raked ash, about eight or nine feet long. We all stood around in front of it, and as I looked at the black ash, with evil little red eyes peaking through, smelled the smoke, saw the large chunks of wood burned brightly on the side and felt the heat from the bed, I did need to breathe deeply to keep myself calm… It was a very intense sensual experience, sight; smell and sensation were all involved. The crowd hushed, and Terry made the first walk.
As soon as I saw Terry do it, I knew that it could be done, that literally anyone could walk on hot coals and live to tell. That calmed me down a lot. I was third after Terry, and I confidently (although if truth be told a bit quickly) strode through the fire.
In the end, it was very anti-climatic. I didn’t feel a thing with my feet (the air temperature was about 4 degrees C and lots of water had been poured over where we had assembled to wait until it was our turn, so my feet were actually completely numb). I knew there wasn’t any magic, so really as long as I was sensible, nothing could go wrong, and nothing did.
The other 25-odd people completed their walks, and I decided to go again. I walked there, and back, and there again, three times without pause over the coals. In all, I think I waked the bed about a dozen times (some was vanity, but the latter ones were mostly trying to get a decent photo!). I didn’t get burned, there were no little twinges when I got home, so I had escaped completely unharmed, despite my lack of Chi.
I asked Andy afterwards if he accepted that no Chi was necessary… amazingly, he didn’t. He basically said “Each to their own, your reality is your reality and mine is mine”. I also spoke to lots of the other participants. Some were interested that I could explain the firewalk without resort to magic. Others, however, just kept on believing in the stories. One woman told me that I must have used Chi power, even though I didn’t know it!
All in all it was a very good experience. Certainly not life-changing in the way that Andy had built it up to be, but a good thing to have done nonetheless, particularly for such a worthy cause.
If you ever get the chance, I’d say, “Do it”. If you’re a normal human you’re afraid of fire, and I think it’s healthy to challenge your fears. Just make sure all your Chi is in your feet before you go, and “Don’t stop breathing!”
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 2, from 2008.
Crescent lake is a picturesque body of water in northeastern Newfoundland, Canada, near the small town of Robert’s Arm. Settlement of the area dates back to the 1870s, though other native peoples, including the Beothuk Indians, were early visitors. Robert’s Arm (formerly Rabbit’s Arm) has a population of about a thousand. The scenery is gorgeous, with walking trails snaking over lush green hills and around the placid lake. Though the region’s natural beauty is the main attraction, it is the huge, dragon-like creature with fearsome teeth by the side of the road that draws visitors’ stares. Next to it a sign welcomes visitors to “The ‘Loch Ness’ of Newfoundland!” Crescent Lake, deep and cold, is allegedly home to a local lake monster affectionately known as Cressie.
Along with colleague Joe Nickell, I’ve previously investigated other Canadian lakes in search of the reputed denizens in their depths (Radford & Nickell, 2006). Ontario beasties Champ (of Lake Champlain; Nickell, 2003; Radford, 2003), Igopogo (of Lake Simcoe), and Quebec’s Memphre (of Lac Memphremagog) were no-shows despite our best efforts. I arrived at the lake on a crisp spring day last year hoping that Newfoundland’s famous hospitality extended to their local monster.
But it was not to be. I scanned the horizon and quickly determined that Cressie was not on hand to greet me, so I headed a short distance into Robert’s Arm and inquired about it at the town hall. I got a few curious looks from the pleasant, raven-haired woman behind the desk. Finally her face lit up and she said, “Oh, you need to talk to Fred Parsons, he’s your monster man.”
I’d been traveling in Newfoundland for less than a week and hadn’t quite acclimated to the local accents and cadence. Because of that, I sort of missed the first name and just made a mental note to ask for a man named Parsons; in a town as small as Robert’s Arm, I thought, surely there’s only one. Little did I know that half the town was named Parsons.
I finally did find Fred, a former teacher (and “Citizen of the Year”) with an easy smile and warm handshake. We sat on the town hall steps while he told me about his Cressie sighting: On July 9, 1991, Fred and his wife left Robert’s Arm at around noon for a doctor’s appointment in Corner Brook. As he drove along the lake, he saw something in the water perhaps 100 yards out. “What I saw was like a long, snake-like creature on the water,” he told me. “It was about fifteen or twenty feet long and a dark brownish colour – It was a long, sleek body without any significantly large head, basically right on the water.” He glimpsed it only briefly, and by the time he realized he might have seen Cressie he had passed it by. In the years following his sighting, Fred became the area’s resident collector of lake monster reports, clipping local newspaper items and interviewing witnesses.
Local Aboriginal myths and lore are often cited as evidence for the existence of mysterious creatures. Cressie is no exception: Aboriginal legends are said to tell of two entities supposedly related to Cressie, the woodum haoot (“pond devil”) and the haoot tuwedyee (“swimming demon”). Several sources make this claim, and it is tempting to marshal old native stories and legends into modern evidence. However, one must be careful: just because native peoples have a name for a non-human entity does not necessarily mean that it actually refers to a real creature. Our own Western folklore tradition includes fantastic creatures from long ago (such as English fairies and Irish leprechauns); these are stories and not meant to be taken literally. The references to the woodum haoot and the haoot tuwedyee seem to have been simply copied from one source to another without having been verified as having any actual connection to Cressie. (A similar phenomenon occurred at Lake Okaganan, with native stories of the supernatural entity N’ha-a-itk being cited as evidence for Ogopogo; see Radford, 2006.)
The Sightings
While there has been no organized, sustained effort to verify the creature’s existence, no hard evidence – bones, live specimens, or carcasses – has been found. Unlike the monsters in Loch Ness and Lake Champlain, Cressie has never been photographed; virtually all of the evidence for Cressie’s existence comes from eyewitness sightings. There have been about a dozen Cressie sightings since the 1940s. According to an information plaque on Cressie at “Cressie’s Castle,” a tourist lookout on the lake:
In the local oral tradition, sightings of Cressie go back to the turn of the century when one of Robert’s Arm’s first residents, remembered today as ‘Grandmother Anthony,’ was startled from her berry picking by a giant serpent out on the lake. In another daylight sighting of the early 1950s, two local woodsmen on the shores of the lake noticed what they thought was a boom log just off shore. Puzzled that it was drifting into the wind, the men motored hurriedly out in time to witness the upturned ‘log,’ now huge, black, and rounded, slip beneath the waters of the lake. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Andrew Burton, long since retired, recalls that they wasted no time in regaining the shore.
Burton described the object as about 25 feet long and a foot in diameter. Though it was at first thought to be a log, Burton said it didn’t act like one: “A boom log would not have sunk suddenly out of sight or travelled against the wind.” The sign continues,
On Thursday afternoon, September 5th, 1991, at approximately 4:30 PM, Mr. Pierce Rideout, a resident of Robert’s Arm, was driving his pickup truck at the approach to that town when he noticed a disturbance on the surface of Crescent Lake. He observed through the open window of his truck what seemed to be the bow wave of a small boat about 150 yards off shore, or three-quarters the way from the small beach near Warr’s Service Station and the forested point of land across the lake. It appeared to Mr. Rideout that a slowly moving object had just dropped below the surface, but as he watched, it rose to sight again: a black, fifteen foot long shape pitching forward in a rolling motion much as a whale does but with no sign of a fin, ‘sail,’ paddle, or fluke. Nor did it show a head or a neck. It then sank out of sight and did not reappear.
In recent years other sightings (all essentially describing the same long, snake-like shape) have occasionally been reported. With very few exceptions, eyewitness credibility is not in doubt. “There’s several locals who have spotted it and the fact of the matter is they’ve got nothing to lie about, they’re honest people,” Fred told me. Often lake monster reports will take a wide variety of forms; anything strange, odd, or mysterious seen in the lake is likely to be interpreted as the creature. People tend to see what they wish or hope to see, and once locals and tourists become aware of the monster, they will likely see monsters even when there are none.
Cressie Candidates
One thing that virtually all witnesses agree on is that Cressie is dark and eel-like in appearance. George Eberhart (2002), in his encyclopedia Mysterious Creatures, suggests that Cressie might be an oversized American eel (Anguilla rostrata). Indeed, “the lake and surrounding ponds are famous for their population of abnormally large eels”.
Though the eels typically grow to less than five feet, Robert’s Arm writer Russell Bragg notes that “RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) divers may have accidentally discovered related ‘monsters’ while investigating an unfortunate drowning accident in another similar-sized lake in the area, South Pond. They returned to the surface with descriptions of giant eels as thick as a man’s thigh. Many believe Cressie to be such a creature” (Bragg, 1995). Fred Parsons says he believes it is “quite possible” that Cressie is a giant eel. “What I saw indicated it was an eel-like creature. No question about that – but still we have a lake monster.”
The eel hypothesis is by far the most likely, and the most popular explanation among longtime residents and eyewitnesses. Robert’s Arm senior citizen Hughie Ryan says, “I think it’s all nonsense. But there are some big fish in the lake, and I think there may be a giant eel in there.” Says seventy-year-old, lifelong resident Ray Hewlett, “Some of the old fellers used to see it, they say. A giant
eel they used to say, years ago” (Power, n.d.). As Fred told me, “It was only recently that a couple of trappers/fisher-men were granted permission to set out eel traps in the lake. They successfully secured a high number of them”. Thus is it such a stretch then to think that Cressie, the “eel-like” lake monster, might actually be eel?
Locals offer several other explanations, including floating or drifting trees and logs. There is no question that countless sunken logs lay in the lake’s murky depths. After all, Crescent was used for decades for the specific purpose of floating logs through it: Well over a half million cords of pulpwood were harvested from the area and shipped overseas to large paper mills in Europe. The Crescent Lake/Tommy’s Arm River network became a major center for this export pulpwood operation.
As with other reported lake monsters, it is a mistake to look for only one specific explanation for all the sightings. In truth there are many things in the lake – living and other wise – that might double as large lake creatures. The sightings are probably a mixture of misidentifications, floating logs, large fish, otters, and perhaps even giant eel. It is also possible, of course, that Cressie is a prehistoric survivor or fantastic creature unknown to science and zoology. Yet if a group of unknown creatures has existed in the lake for centuries (thus being reported by Aboriginal legends), it’s difficult to explain why they are so rarely seen. Crescent is a relatively small lake along a highway next to a small town, yet sightings only date back about sixty years, averaging one sighting every five years.
Cressie and Tourism
Whether Cressie lurks in the waters of Crescent Lake or not, it certainly exists in the local folklore and imaginations. The tourism potential of their local monster has not been lost on the officials and citizens of Robert’s Arm and the Beothuk Trail Tourism Committee. The town has tried to publicize itself as a lake monster tourism destination. In an area (in fact, an entire province) that has suffered economically from a dying timber industry and depletion of cod fisheries, tourism is being promoted like never before. The main effort began in the early 1990s, when local resident Russell Bragg created the Cressie sign along the highway.
A quarter mile or so down the road is the Lake Crescent Inn, run by Evelyn and Bruce Warr. As their brochure says, “Bring your camera! You just might see Cressie, our lake monster.” If you don’t see the beastie from the hotel, a twenty-minute walk along the lake will bring you to Cressie’s Castle, a scenic area created especially for lake monster watching. It is outfitted with wooden benches, a boardwalk, and an information plaque. floats, and so on.
I left Robert’s Arm and Crescent Lake without my monster, but that was okay. Whether fish, logs, giant eel, or unknown monster, Cressie’s true identity is mostly irrelevant to the residents of Robert’s Arm. And whether or not Cressie is in the lake, it is active in the hearts and minds of this small Newfoundland community.
References
Bragg, R. A. (1991). Beothuk Times: Newsletter of the Beothuk Trail Tourism Committee, 2(2).
Bragg, R. A. (1992). Beothuk Times: Newsletter of the Beothuk Trail Tourism Committee, 3(1).
Bragg, R. A. (1995). Have you seen Cressie? In W. Jackman, B. Warr, & R. A. Bragg (Eds.), Remembrances of Robert’s Arm: Come Home Year 1995 (pp. 14-16). Corner Brook, Newfoundland: Western Star Publishers.
Eberhart, G. (2002). Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
Nickell, J. (2003). Legend of the Lake Champlain Monster. Skeptical Inquirer, 27(4), 18-23.
Power, Jennifer. N.D. What Lurkes in Crescent Lake? Norwester newspaper.
Radford, B. (2003). The measure of a monster: Investigating the Champ photo. Skeptical Inquirer, 27(4), 24-28.
Radford, B. (2006). Ogopogo the chameleon. Skeptical Inquirer, 30(1), 41-46.
Radford, B., & Nickell, J. (2006). Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most ElusiveCreatures. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 2, from 2008.
There is a growing perception that the existence of near-death experiences (NDEs) poses a serious challenge to current scientific understandings of the brain, mind and consciousness. This was reaffirmed in 2001 in a high-impact publication which received world wide attention. This is in some friction with the dominant view from mainstream neuroscience; that the mind is, what the brain does (for comprehensive reviews, see Gray, 2004; van Hemmen & Sejnowski, 2006; Kanwisher & Duncan, 2004). According to the current scientific view, consciousness is an emergent property of the human brain in action. Within mainstream science, this is hardly a controversial or indeed unsupported viewpoint.
Like a number of studies before them, van Lommel et al. (2001) argued that their NDE research findings support the need for a radical revision of mainstream views concerning the relationship between the brain and consciousness. The implication is that the mind may be separable from the brain and hence we may all survive bodily death (known as the survivalist position). In contrast, other researchers have suggested that these experiences are hallucinations, the final visions produced by a massively disinhibited and dying brain. Although the various dying-brain accounts may concentrate on contributions from different mechanisms, none assume that mind is separate from brain.
The nature of the claim being made by the survivalists should not be underestimated. If true, it would require a truly radical revision of current neuroscience and the known laws of physics. To support such a radical view one would ideally require radical evidence of high quality. Did van Lommel et al. (2001) furnish their interpretations with such evidence? No. Despite its impact in NDE circles, the van Lommel et al. study provides no evidence that human consciousness survives bodily death. Here, I’d like to briefly examine the factual and logical errors present in the analysis proposed in the van Lommel et al. study. It should be noted that the criticisms outlined here for that study also apply to the other studies promoting the survivalist position which are based on similar arguments.
The study of Pim van Lommel et al. (2001)
Methodologically speaking the van Lommel et al. (2001) study makes a useful contribution. They carried out a prospective study of 344 successfully resuscitated cardiac patients, 18% of whom reported NDEs (12% reported core NDEs). They investigated a host of factors, including demographic variables, age and medical history, and also interviewed patients a number of times over an eight-year period. There is certainly a wealth of useful data gathered by this study and researchers inter- ested in the NDE would do well to consult this work. However, the real problems with the van Lommel et al. study are not so much related to their methods, but their interpretations and conclusions.
Based on their findings, van Lommel et al. (2001) concluded that we now require a new approach to consciousness – one that gives provision for non-irreducibility of the mind to the brain. In other words, the mind is not what the brain does and may indeed be independent of it. This neo-dualism is worrying. It is worrying as it appears to be primarily based on a potent combination of both factual and logical errors concerning the role of the brain in mental experience. The present paper will argue that the conclusions van Lommel et al. propose are at least premature and are at most unfounded. As such, the van Lommel study poses no serious challenge at all to current neuroscientific accounts of the NDE.
Misunderstandings over the role of anoxia: The 18% claim does not support survival
Survivalists have repeatedly misunderstood and misrepresented the dying-brain hypothesis when trying to argue against it (see, e.g., Fenwick, 1995; Fontana, 1992; Parnia & Fenwick, 2001; Parnia et al., 2001; Smythies, 1992). The van Lommel et al. study was no exception. Fundamental to van Lommel et al.’s argument against the dying-brain hypothesis was the observation that only 18% of patients actually reported an NDE. Apparently (according to van Lommel et al.), this supports the case for a whole new approach to consciousness (see also Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Fontana, 1992). I disagree. Their reasoning was as follows. They argued that if cerebral anoxia was crucial for causing these experiences, and these patients experienced the same level of anoxia, then all should have reported NDEs. They state (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2039):
With a purely physiological explanation such as cerebral anoxia for the experience, most patients who have been clinically dead should report one.
Subsequently, they claim (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2043):
Our results show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE; although all patients had been clinically dead, most did not have NDE. Furthermore, seriousness of the crisis was not related to occurrence or depth of the experience. If purely physiological factors resulting from cerebral anoxia caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience.
From this, van Lommel at al. argued that, as only 18% reported NDE, this is clear evidence against the idea that the experiences are due to a dying brain. If this was the case, then all comparable patients should have reported an NDE. From this point, it appears to have been a small and ‘logical’ progression to directly infer that these experiences must be of paranormal origin and that these experiences index some form of survival of consciousness. This analysis is unsupported, illogical and, academically speaking, misleading.
Before going any further, it is important to be clear that van Lommel et al. (2001) provided no direct measures of anoxia for anyone in their sample. The presence and level of anoxia was indirectly inferred via experiential components provided in questionnaire responses and medical information regarding the nature and duration of the cardiac arrest. While one can accept the general essence of this reasoning, the method is certainly indirect and highly problematic.
As a consequence, the claims of the study go far beyond what the data were capable of showing. No hard claims over the levels of anoxia should have been made when there was little or no attempt to measure it directly. This is problematic for v an Lommel et al., as their fundamental claim rests on the assumption that patients had comparable levels of anoxia (something which was never shown to be the case). There was no direct evidence, and hence no real reason to assume, that this was the case. As such, the whole rationale of this claim is under-mined.
While we can accept that those patients whom have suffered longer periods of cardiac insufficiency are more likely to have received greater levels of anoxia, we have no idea what those levels w ere in each case, or indeed that they were comparable. Comparing patients who have undergone similar durations of cardiac arrest is also no direct metric at all of the balance of blood gases in the brain, as resuscitation methods, their duration, and their efficiency will have varied considerably (not to mention the physical differences across patients).
Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly, the dying-brain hypothesis makes no such direct claims about the level of anoxia per se. Blackmore (1996, 1993, 1992, 1990) is quite clear on the matter that it is the rate of change or rate of anoxia onset that is important, not the overall level reached (see also Woerlee, 2003, for further evidence). If the onset of anoxia is too fast, patients simply lose consciousness and black out. Here, no conscious experience or memory would occur. With more prolonged rates of onset, the patient can seem somewhat confused and dazed. However, an intermediate level of change seems more conducive to intense altered states and NDEs. This was a clear point made explicit by Blackmore, who also outlined the many different types of anoxia and their experiential consequences yet this is either completely missed or misunderstood by van Lommel et al. Therefore, the whole logic of this position is based on a false and vastly oversimplified premise concerning the dying-brain hypothesis.
Thirdly, van Lommel et al. also totally ignored the degrees of within-brain and between-brain heterogeneity which would have implications for the degree of anoxia present, its rate of onset, and how it could impact on human experience. For example, in terms of within-brain differences, Blackmore (1993) noted that, as well as there being many different forms of anoxia (that have diverse neurophysiological consequences), any given rate of anoxia can impact on different brain areas disproportionately due to cell proximity to arteries and capillaries, to localised cell density, connectivity, and indeed the current levels of demand and activity in the specific neural systems being affected.
In a structural sense, differing brain regions have differing numbers of neurons, with diverse connections and characteristics, all of which have differing oxygen demands. In a functional sense, levels of activity across neural systems within and between brain regions will not be matched – and so certain areas will be more susceptible to anoxia than others – based on the current processing demands taking place. In terms of between-brain variability, one illustrative line of evidence is that air-force pilots have been shown to have different thresholds of G-LOC and can tolerate (within a certain degree) a different level of stress and anoxia before losing consciousness.
Under these circumstances the amount of G-force can be controlled, yet clear differences across individuals exist. These differences reflect important physiological characteristics which clearly interact with external stressors. So a given level of anoxia can impact on experience differently across individuals. The van Lommel et al. study ignores these well known and well documented aspects of the dying-brain account.
Finally, a further logical problem is that it is not at all clear how an afterlife hypothesis actually explains the 18% rate of NDE. Surely, if an afterlife existence were real, all those in a position to glimpse it would do so? In other words, if the afterlife existed in some real sense, the real question is why did only 18% glimpse it? Indeed, is it not more of a problem for the afterlife hypothesis that only 18% have reported such experiences? Van Lommel et al. say nothing about this and as such no viable survivalist case was ever made for why only 18% of patients reported NDEs. At the very least, this seems to be an opportunity lost by the authors.
Misplaced confidence in EEG measurements
Within NDE research, a number of investigators have argued that a flat electroencephalogram (EEG) reading can be taken as evidence of total brain inactivity (and van Lommel et al. recruit this argument into their interpretation; Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Parnia & Fenwick, 2001; Parnia et al., 2001; Sabom, 1998). This claim is totally incorrect. It is certainly the case that a flat cortical EEG would be indicative of a brain that is in some trouble. Assuming no technical error or problems with electrode contact, a flat EEG is far from desirable. However, the assumption that a flat EEG can be taken as strong evidence of global and total brain inactivity is unfounded.
It is also noteworthy that the studies making large claims about flat EEGs provide no information regarding the level of gain employed on the EEG device, assuming they were digital-QEEG devices. This would seem important as any EEG can become almost flat with the gain turned to a minimum. A flat EEG at maximum gain would be more indicative of neocortical inactivity, though again, not full-brain inactivity.
Unless surgically implanted into the brain directly, the EEG principally measures surface cortical activity. The waveforms seen in cortical EEG are largely regarded to come from the synchronistic firing of cortical pyramidal neurons. As such, it is entirely conceivable that deep sub-cortical brain structures could be firing, and even in seizure, in the absence of any cortical signs of this activity (for evidence based on electrical stimulation and seizure propagation, see Gloor, 1986; Gloor, Olivier, Quesney, Andermann, & Horowitz, 1982).
Indeed, evidence reviewed by Gloor (1986) argued that inter-ictal discharges in the hippocampus or amygdala alone w ere more than sufficient to produce complex meaningful hallucinations – no involvement from the cortex was necessary!
A related idea is that seizure-based hallucinatory EEG patterns have been absent from the background EEG in some instances of NDE, even when the EEG itself was not flat (Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995). By this account, if the NDE was a hallucinatory process based in disinhibition, then the logic is that such disinhibition should be clearly visible in the EEG at that time.
However, the emerging evidence is somewhat unhelpful for the survivalist. Tao, Ray, Hawes-Ebersole, and Ebersole (2005) compared EEG activity from surgically implanted electrodes placed in or around deep sub-cortical regions of epileptic patients, with cortical EEG electrodes placed on the scalp of the same patients. The results were quite surprising. Tao et al. showed that for 90% of cases, large amplitude paroxysmal firing needed to recruit 10 cm 2 of brain tissue in order to show up against background cortical EEG traces.
In other words, large seizure-based activity was being recorded by the surgically implanted electrodes (indexing clear and widespread brain-seizure activity) which was completely absent from scalp-based EEG traces until it propagated through and excited 10 cm2 of brain volume. This is a considerable amount of brain tissue.
Furthermore, a recent study that employed both EEG and brain-imaging (fMRI) techniques to explore seizure processes found significant increases in localised cortical neural activity (indicative of a seizure) in the fMRI BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependant) response, which was completely absent from the EEG data. This is particularly striking in that this occurred despite the fact that the intense seizure activity occurred in a region where EEG electrodes were closely spaced. Kobayashi et al. note that this is striking as the EEG completely missed the most intensely discharging region despite the fact that this region was also located at the cortical level.
The implication for NDE research is, of course, that the EEG does not provide a highly reliable measure of complete neural activity. Even high-amplitude seizure activity can fail to manifest itself in the background EEG if it does not recruit enough neural landscape. To summarise, confidence in previous claims that flat EEG represents total neural inactivity appears severely misplaced. These cases may represent instances of ‘false-positives’ (positive from the perspective of the survivalist wanting to recruit such instances as evidence of a dead brain).
In addition, even in the presence of a background EEG, seizure-based activity (which is sufficient to support hallucinatory imagery and aura) could be considerable and y et may not become manifest in the cortical scalp-based EEG. Note also that the above empirical estimates were based on epileptic brains which produce large-amplitude brain activity. These estimates themselves may need to be increased even further for the normal non-epileptic brain which does not typically produce such high-amplitude synchronistic characteristics.
What the dying brain hypothesis really says: The importance of neural disinhibition
When one considers the dying-brain account in its full context it is clear to see that the emphasis placed on cerebral anoxia misses the true essence of the account. As a consequence, many of the criticisms against the dying-brain hypothesis border on the irrelevant. For the dying-brain account, the central assumption does not revolve around the presence or absence of anoxia per se, but of neural disinhibition. So the dying-brain hypothesis is perhaps more accurately characterised as one that models NDEs as an experiential consequence of a disinhibited brain.
Of course, such neural disinhibition can be induced by anoxia, and it is likely that under more prolonged near-death situations it is likely to be present but, as a process, disinhibition can actually be triggered by many psychological and neurological factors such as confusion, trauma, sensory deprivation, illness, pathology, epilepsy, migraine, drug use and brain stimulation (for comprehensive reviews, see Appleby, 1989; Baldwin, 1970; Blackmore, 1993; Sacks, 1995; Siegal, 1980). Without exception, all these instances that induce neural disinhibition and seizure-type activity can all be associated with aura and hallucination.
In principle then, anoxia does not need to be present at all to produce hallucinatory imagery. However, under cases where people are ‘near death’ or suffer cardiac insufficiency for any prolonged period of time, it is likely (i.e., reasonable to assume) a degree of anoxia would be present. Therefore, while anoxia is one route via which disinhibition can occur, it is by no means the only route. In addition, the dying-brain hypothesis predicts that more vivid, profound, and meaningful NDEs are likely to be associated with greater degrees of disinhibition. Thus, NDEs reported when people truly are nearer to death (and hence the level of disinhibition would conceivably be greater), should be more vivid, profound, detailed and meaningful, relative to those reported when people only believed themselves to be so. This is exactly what has been found.
The idea that disinhibition underlies these striking perceptions is further evidenced by the brain’s very limited scope for tolerating abnormal states and how it typically responds when it does encounter them. By far, the most common reaction from the brain to such states is disinhibition and seizure. Very small changes in the neural environment have been shown to be more than sufficient to impact on the fine balance maintained in the brain.
For example, a 10-15% reduction in GABA inhibition is sufficient to significantly increase seizure propagation in cortical tissue, and changes of a few millimoles in extracellular potassium levels can turn a stable neural population into an epileptogenic one. The ranges of these values are well within those encountered under normal brain functioning. The real question then becomes not one of whether disinhibition or seizure could be involved in contexts conducive to NDE but, as Schwartzkroin (1997) states, more one of why seizures are not indeed far more common and why are we are not all having seizures constantly!
There is a further conundrum for the survivalist: in order for any experience to be remembered (assuming some form of perceptual experience occurred), memory must have encoded and represented the experience in the first place. Applied to the NDE, this means that there must have been sufficient neural activity to encode the experience, to represent the experience, and to store the experience (even a glimpse of an afterlife would require this). As far as current science is concerned, it is not at all clear how a memory of an experience can occur without the use of memory itself. The very fact that these experiences were ‘remembered’ in the first place suggests that memory itself was functioning and encoding at the time of the experience (meaning there was neural activity in those brain regions during the experience, which may indeed have been responsible for the experience).
Of course false-memories show that we can remember the palpably untrue as a real memory, but these false memories are often based on illusory conjunctions between other encoded information represented in our memory systems. A false memory still requires an intact memory system, or at the very least, a partially intact one. In addition to this, other survivalists have argued that a brain near-death is too unstable to support vivid hallucination, and so cannot be an explanation for NDE. The logical problem, however, for these researchers is: if the brain is too unstable to support hallucination, how is it possible for it to be stable enough to ‘remember’ mystical experience?
A further problem is that it is factually incorrect; all disinhibitory models of brain function have provision for stable vivid hallucination. Indeed, a disinhibited brain could produce an experience that is ‘more vivid’ and stable than even veridical perception as that experience would be endowed with ferocious neural activity, at least for a given time period.
In addition, the survivalists assume that neural stability and cognitive stability are one and the same thing, which is certainly not the case. This is the crucial logical fallacy of this whole field of research: how can one memorise an event in the absence of a working and functioning memory system?
If, as the survivalists claim, the brain is dead then surely, so is memory. If memory is dead, then how can individuals remember anything – even if the original experience was mystical? The only way around this for the survivalist is to add some more untested assumptions and degrees of freedom that are tailored to allow for some paranormal mechanism in the first place.
However, this again is a folly. Firstly, it violates the principles of Occam’s razor by adding assumptions that are clearly unjustified. Secondly, it begs the question, assuming to be true that which it seeks to argue is true in the first place. It thus represents a hopeless case of circular reasoning. The survivalists can only make their arguments work here by assuming further, untested, supernatural ideas to be true. This is a serious error of reason, and one that undermines the argument to the level of uselessness.
Finally, the inescapable fact for the survivalist is that the brain is constantly trying to make sense of the ambiguous information it is given to arrive at a stable and coherent interpretation. If the context and information provided to the senses are unfamiliar, odd and bizarre, then one should not be surprised if the resulting conscious experience is some what unfamiliar, odd and bizarre.
This fits neatly with developments in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience that views neurocogni tion as an active model-building process. According to recent emerging scientific frameworks, even stable conscious experience is something of a fiction, but a far lesser fiction than other possible alternative realities. By this account, stable perception and indeed consciousness itself can be viewed as a form of controlled hallucination. Once it is realised that normal perception itself can be viewed, to some degree, as a stable and successful hallucination, it is hardly a leap to view NDEs as an extension of this natural process. The NDE then is merely a greater fiction that serves a temporary purpose for consciousness in that, for a short while, it represents reality in the absence of the more usual and stable reality provided by the senses.
Other common misunderstandings
For neuroscientists, the fact that many components of the NDE are very similar to experiences associated with pathology, disease, illness, neurological conditions (e.g., schizophrenia, autoscopy, Charles-Bonnet syndrome, migraine aura, epilepsy aura) and direct forms of brain stimulation is a strong indication that such experiences have an underlying neural correlate. There is no component of the NDE that is unique to being ‘near-death’.
Ignoring such strong similarities, survivalists like to highlight the marginal differences and van Lommel et al. (2001) did not miss their opportunity to further add to this confusion. When discussing the experiences associated with direct electrical brain stimulation they stated (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2044):
These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the panoramic life-review that can occur in NDE. Further, transformational processes with changing life-insight and disappearance of fear of death are rarely reported after induced experiences.
Thus, induced experiences are not identical to NDE…
Firstly, this claim is not entirely correct. Vivid and meaningful experiences are reported by patients undergoing brain stimulation ). Secondly, what the analysis of van Lommel et al. ignores is the crucial role of context. Patients undergoing electrical brain stimulation are typically conscious, know what to expect, are relaxed and enjoy a constant controlled interaction with the surgeon. They also receive constant feedback from the surgical team.
This is nothing like the experiential context of the typical NDE where the patient is only semi-conscious (at best), and possibly undergoing some form of trauma, confusion, disorientation and dissociation from their surroundings. It is certainly not unreasonable to assume that the small experiential differences between NDE and brain stimulation studies can be explained, to some degree, by these large differences in context. This is certainly a far more probable conclusion than that of mind-brain dualism.
Furthermore, the reason the experiences under artificial circumstances are perhaps more brief and fragmented has nothing to do with a special status for the NDE, but more to do with the fact that the surgeon temporarily stimulates specific neuronal cell assemblies in an attempt to hone in on the type of aura experiences that the patients report as part of their epileptic condition.
Under these circumstances the stimulation is meant to be brief, localised and controlled, which again is totally unlike a large intense seizure that would likely propagate through more tissue. The surgeon is trying merely to induce aura, not a massive seizure. It is certainly not the aim of the surgeon to induce deep, meaningful and long lasting spiritual experiences. It is usually the case that many experiences are elicited before the sought after aura is induced. Once the region associated with a particular sensation/aura has been identified then the surgery can begin.
To ignore these crucial differences in context is to do more than a disservice to both the relevance of these brain-stimulation studies and the way the dying-brain hypothesis recruits them into a theoretical framework. The dying-brain hypothesis states that the fact that highly similar experiences occur through direct interaction with neural tissue strongly implicates the role of the brain in the NDE.
It never claimed that the experiences under both contexts should be identical – simply because both contexts are not identical! To illustrate this further, imagine you become stranded in a busy city centre and need to find your way home. The feeling associated with being stranded would be totally different if that city centre was familiar to you versus being completely unfamiliar and foreign to you. This is despite the fact that the same process, that of being stranded, underlies both experiences.
In their discussion and interpretation, van Lommel et al. (2001) perpetuate a further common misunderstanding in NDE research regarding the co-occurrence of an NDE and the presence of flat EEG profiles. They ask (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2044):
How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?
This question is loaded and flawed. It is flawed because there are no documented cases that clearly show that NDE occurred at the precise time that the EEG was flat. This appears to be merely assumed. In any given case a flat EEG may occur and a patient may report an NDE, but there is no evidence that these two events occur at the same time. Although some have tried to make the argument for a link, others have questioned this and shown it to be untrue, at least for the cases so far investigated and followed up by independent researchers. It thus becomes loaded as it assumes something to be true, which has never indeed been reliably shown to be true.
As such, the question is pointless in this context. To be fair, the van Lommel group are not the only ones to make this error, but their study represents one of the latest and highest impacting studies to make the mistake. Furthermore, as already explained, because flat EEG profiles do not necessarily index complete brain inactivity, even if such cases did exist it would not provide strong or convincing evidence that these experiences are taking place when the brain was dead. Instead, these arguments seem to reflect little more than a combination of poor understandings of brain science, selective evidence, and an uncritical acceptance of anecdotal reports.
Like others before them, van Lommel et al. (2001, p. 2044) imply that the NDE is severely problematic for contemporary cognitive neuroscience:
NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation.
However, the evidence recruited in support of this statement is deeply unconvincing. Although the dying-brain hypothesis is far from complete, it is much further from being obsolete. All scientific accounts are in constant need of revision or refutation and the dying-brain hypothesis is no exception. Indeed, this is the process of science itself.
As contemporary cognitive neuroscience progresses, the dying brain hypothesis should expect serious revision – though it is unlikely this will be to the benefit of the survivalist. In addition, the NDE should be considered a legitimate area of research for neuroscience and scientists could certainly learn a great deal about the brain and cognitive function by studying such instances.
However, it is difficult to see what one could learn from the paranormal survivalist position which sets out assuming the truth of that which it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts. Scientifically speaking, confidence in the survivalist position would seem, at least at present, to be misplaced.
Conclusion
The van Lommel study was a major investigation published in a high-impact medical journal that received world-wide coverage. While methodologically speaking the study was well carried out and is a valuable contribution to the field, the interpretations of the findings offered by the authors seem fanciful at best. The logical and factual mistakes in the interpretation of the study seem common to this field of research and show no sign of dissipating.
Like many before it, the van Lommel et al. study has served to do little more than propagate poor understanding of brain science, which seems common to the survivalist approach. I know of no arguments proposed by the survivalists against the dying-brain hypothesis which actually characterise the dying-brain hypothesis accurately. The van Lommel et al. study was no exception. Such arguments are at least disingenuous and, at most, active attempts to avoid crucial information. If, at the very least, future survivalists attempted to characterise and represent the dying-brain hypothesis appropriately before arguing against it, they would certainly be making a unique contribution to the literature from that perspective.
It is important to be clear that van Lommel et al. provided no evidence at all that the mind or consciousness is separate from brain processes. In addition, there were no direct measures of anoxia, and no measures of neuroelectrical brain activity from their patients. Their findings are entirely consistent with contemporary neuroscience and are in line with the general dying-brain
account of NDE. As such, this study poses no challenge at all to either psychological or neuroscientific accounts for the NDE. From this we can see that their claim of the need for a new science of consciousness (which makes provision for some form of dualism) is unfounded and unnecessary. In the absence of strong evidence for survival, it appears that the position of the survivalist is still one based on faith.
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[London UK, 2006] — The Utne Reader, a national magazine that celebrates the best of the independent press by reading and reprinting from 1,500 independent magazines, newsletters, blogs and more, announces the nomination of The Skeptic magazine for an Utne Independent Press Award in the category of Science/Technology Coverage.
