The Andreasson Affair (8 page)

Figure 20:
May 5
.

Betty:
I feel shaky.… He's taking an instrument and—I'm going to stand over the [
sigh
]…I'm in complete control…control. He's taking an instrument and—ah-h-h-h!… Ow-wow!… [
Deep, fast breathing
.] Why do you have to put that up my nose—oh-h-h-h-!

Our hearts went out to Betty, as the face of the attractive, gentle woman in the hypnotist's chair was alternately creased with expressions of apprehension and pain. My hands gripped the notepad as I tried unsuccessfully to disassociate myself from the trauma being relived before me. In her mind's eye, she was at that very moment held captive within a strange craft, pinned upon a rectangular metal block, and staring up in pain and raw terror at strange alien creatures, one of whom had pushed a long silver needle into her left nostril. Her deep, heavy breathing continued, her face distorted in pain.

Betty:
He's putting that thing in my nose, and it's going up and it's breaking through something. “I don't like it! Oh, and I can't move. It's hurting!” He has that thing up in my head. Oh-h-h-h! [
Her lips quiver
.]

At that point, Quazgaa apparently eased Betty's pain by placing his hand on her forehead and on the top of her head. Betty's body relaxed noticeably. “Thank you,” she said softly.

At this juncture, Harold interrupted Betty's experience, feeling that she had gone through enough anxiety and pain.

Harold:
All right, I want you to open your hand. I am lifting it. You can feel me lifting it. I want you to feel the warmth of my hand entering your hand.

A sense of relief swept through his office. We all had had enough for that day.

Harold:
You can feel yourself relax—relax…I'm going to awaken you. At the count of three, you will awaken. You will feel completely relaxed. Your arms will move. You will feel completely relaxed. You will feel completely normal.… The next time I put you into hypnosis, you will immediately go to this point and go
from
this point still further. One—you are coming out of it…feeling better and better. Two—wide awake. Three!

Betty was allowed total recall of what had occurred under hypnosis. She was puzzled and wondered why she had not
relived
the experience the previous session on May 7.

“I didn't experience this when we
first
went through it,” she said. “Why am I more shaky?”

“Because you went through a trauma now,” Dr. Edelstein explained. “That's why I cut it short.”

“But
before
when it came out, it…”

“Because you weren't reliving it,” Harold said. “It was just something you were talking about.”

We were very appreciative of Betty's cooperation. Recalling these strange happenings caused her much mental strain and anguish, and her conscious mind found it difficult to accommodate the weekly influx of once-forgotten terror. When she had sufficiently recovered the harrowing time in the hypnotist's chair, we initiated a period of intense debriefing.

Fred:
At one point, you seemed to be trying to separate yourself from what was going on, trying to
stand off
to one side. Is that really what you were doing at that time?

Betty:
No. I was on the table, and they had that long, thin needle and they were going to insert it in my nose—they told me they had to do that. And I was thinking of what Dr. Edelstein also had told me. For some reason, I still have the understanding, you know, of it…I was trying to separate myself from what they were going to do.

Joseph:
This is when you were saying you were in complete control?

Betty:
Yes, I was trying that, to see if I could get away from going into that—where they were going to use the needle.

Fred:
But that didn't help you very much.

Betty:
I
couldn't
separate from it, because I just felt as if they had some kind of magnetic thing holding my hands.

Harold:
Feel her hands.

Ray:
(author) Cold!

Harold:
They
were
still colder than that.

Ray:
Did you see anything that was strapping you down?

Betty:
No. It just…they somehow had my hands—my legs and my hands.

Ray:
Could you move your head? Could you move anything?

Betty:
I don't think that I could turn my head.

Our questions continued late into the afternoon. Finally we returned to our homes, shocked and bewildered about what we had experienced that day. It would be another week before Betty was again hypnotically conveyed to the examination room of the alien craft, but it was decided that at the next session we would allow Betty to continue reliving the physical examination as a participant.

Our Saturday hypnosis sessions had by now become quite routine. That day, however, we were so eager to get started that the customary rendezvous at a local pancake house and the drive to Harold's offices seemed like hurdles in a race.

Investigators tensed and recorder switches clicked as Harold Edelstein's familiar preamble set the stage for session number nine. “This is June the 19th, 1977.…”

Betty lay back comfortably in the plush reclining chair. Feeling that she had to know what had happened to her, she was determined to find out the truth. In a very short time, Betty was deeply under the influence of Harold's soft but firm voice. “Deeper and deeper…let yourself go. Deeper and deeper.” Soon her body was perfectly relaxed. Her face was a picture of serenity. In several minutes, she would be spirited away to another place at another time where things had not been so peaceful.

Fred:
Betty, we would like to go back to when you were in the craft. You are in the room, and they are starting to measure you physically.

At first, Betty started out impassively, describing what was happening from an onlooker's vantage point.

Betty:
Yes, I'm—they have that—they have put it up inside of my head. I was feeling pain from the needle, and they put their hand on my forehead and on the top of my head, and it took some of the pain away. I don't know why they have to do that in the first
place. I asked them, “Why do you have to do such a thing as this?” I still complained that they had said they were only going to have to measure me for light, and not this kind of test. And they said it's very important that they should do this. But they won't explain why.

And that other one is coming over by him with some kind of thing in his hand—looks sort of like a…paper, but it's like
webbed
paper or sort of a roll. [See
Figure 21
.] He opened it up a little bit to show him.… Quazgaa is looking at it.… They still have that thing stuck up my nose [
sigh
] and he's looking at the thing. They're pulling it out a little bit. Ah-h, makes me feel dizzy with that thing there. He's saying, “It's not going to be much longer.” He's still looking at that weblike thing, whatever it is. And there's talking about something. He's pointing down at something.… And now the other man or that
being
—or whatever he is—is taking it and rolling it back up.… And he is turning to me.… They are going to take that thing out. I hope it doesn't hurt!

Her face became lined with fearful apprehension.

Betty:
He's taking that thing out now.… Oh! It feels funny. [
Sigh
] They took it out, and it looks like
there is some kind of a ball on the end of it
—something on the end of it. A little thing, whatever it was, on the end of the needle. [See
Figure 22
on
page 66
.] It's kind of hard to see what it is. [
Sigh
]

Betty described the needle as
removing
something from her nasal cavity. This was intriguing! Where had it come from? How did it get there? The atmosphere within the crowded office was charged with an air of expectancy. But because an interruption at that time was unthinkable, I made a note to inquire about it later. When the customary debriefing session began in earnest, I asked about the object which the aliens had removed through Betty's nose.

Ray:
I was curious as regarding the
ball
on the end of the needle when they pulled it out of your nose.

Betty:
It was a little
ball
with little prickly things on it.

Figure 21

Figure 22

The needles used in the examination. June 19
.

Ray:
Was it there
before
they put it in your nose? Did you notice it?

Betty:
No.

Ray:
It wasn't there when they originally put the needle in your nose?

Betty:
No.

Ray:
You are fairly certain about that?

Betty:
Yes.

Another interesting aspect requiring further clarification was the strip of webbed paper used in conjunction with the needle inserted in Betty's left nostril.

Ray:
On that weblike paper. On the roll—did you notice any writing or markings on it at all, or was it clear?

Betty:
It was weblike netting.

Harold:
Like webbing on a chair? Is that what you mean? Like these chairs with the warp and the woof?

Betty:
Yes. It was uniform all the way across. But it was not of that, uh, string material—it was brown. It was a tan brown. And it was spooled—from a little roll. It was pulled out, and it was frayed at the end. They were looking at it, and then they pulled it out further and pointed to something.

Fred:
Did you see what they were pointing at?

Betty:
It all looked the same.

After removing the needle from her nostril, the diminutive creatures huddled together as if discussing the results of measuring Betty physically. Betty watched in utter despair. She felt helpless, desolate, and cut off
from all human help and compassion. Her captors exuded little emotion, moving and behaving with cool, dispassionate precision. Betty felt like a human guinea pig.

Betty:
And now they are going over there and talking. [
Sigh
] Oh boy, I'll be glad when this is all over with! [
Sigh
] They are talking about something over there.… Now they are looking over at me. [
Sigh
] They are coming over again.… And they are saying they have to measure me for
procreation
.

Betty became terrified and cried out anxiously, “What are you doing that for? What is that?”

“It won't hurt,” they said. “Don't worry, it won't hurt.”

“I didn't think that other would hurt either,” she retorted, “but it hurt!”

Now, under hypnosis, as Betty approached the next segment of the painful physical examination, she alternated back and forth between the roles of observer and participant:

Betty:
And so, they are getting ready for something. They are down by my feet somewhere. They are doing something there. They are not touching me, but they are doing something.

Betty strained the movement of her eyes to see what the entities were doing. Her vision was restricted because she could not lift her head.

Betty:
It must be something down there they are preparing. I can't see it.… Now they are pulling something. That needle again with a tube, like on the end. They are pulling—looks like he's pulling.… Oh! And he's opening up that shirt, and—he's going to put that in my navel! Oh-h-h-h. I don't like this!

As I leaned closer to Betty, a wave of empathy encompassed me. At times, we became so engrossed with her experiences that it became impossible to disengage ourselves emotionally. Now the frown of terror on her face and the agonized tone of her voice were almost too much to witness. I suddenly felt like shouting out in protest at what we were allowing this poor woman to relive.