The woman describes floating through her bedroom wall, as if levitating into a beam of blue light. She recollects only portions of her experience later while under hypnosis: being brought onto a small ship by short gray beings. One of the intruders appears to direct the team of abductors. Once led onto the craft, a taller being leads an examination where intricate procedures are performed. Nearby, she senses a female being who uses gestures to comfort her. She sees no other humans present.

To many, that story may be a familiar one in the realm of the human-extraterrestrial encounter. But delving into the nuances and minutiae across cases is where some believe real discoveries may be made. One large research project in the U.S. today attempts to get at the particulars of the alien abduction phenomenon and to unravel, if possible, any alien agendas.

The Abduction Transcription Project, sponsored by the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, is perhaps the most comprehensive and ambitious research study to date in the field of alien abductions. Dan Wright, MUFON member and board member, launched the project in 1992 with the goal to uncover commonalities in alien abductions.

When people scattered across the country refer to a short being in terms of the same physical characteristics, garment and a certain musty smell, one must pay attention, says Wright, project director of the Abduction Transcription Project. Or if a tall being is wearing a black wetsuit-type garment, is he wearing a belt? If so, does the belt have a black box on it? Such levels of detail are required to begin to grasp more fully and even, perhaps, begin to make sense of the phenomenon.

Descriptions of an entity may include height, skin tone, garment type and garment color. That entity's behavior may be described as caring, manipulative, threatening or humorous. Entity Behavior and Entity Communication, for example, are among the 53 general categories Wright tracks. The project uses verbatim transcripts from the abductee's or subject's actual descriptions, which are fed into Wright's database to glean over 2,000 words and phrases used as descriptors. These descriptors are then classified into the general categories or what Wright calls root factors. Topics here include references to the subject's description of entity appearance, a ship's outward appearance, interior layout, paranormal elements and post-event effects.

The Abduction Transcription Project is a private study which relies on transcripts of audiocassette-recorded sessions from some 19 of the U.S.'s leading abduction researchers, many of whom are psychology professionals, licensed or registered hypnotherapists, doctors, scientists and engineers. The project's contributors have included: Ann Druffel, Richard Haines, Richard Hall, David Jacobs and the late Karla Turner. Many contributors are testing their own abduction hypotheses. By not publicizing certain hypotheses, researchers continue to test their ideas separately and attempt to make sense of the seemingly random or anomalous abduction data.

At present, the Abduction Transcription database consists of 254 cases, incorporating over 700 sessions between researchers and subjects, primarily in dialogue from regressive hypnosis sessions, and some interviews with the subject in a fully conscious state. While each researcher may use different methods and procedures, Wright says the typical case may stretch beyond 100 pages of data. Some researchers, such as David Jacobs, may just do one interview session with a subject, while others, such as Richard Haines, often ask the same question three different ways to determine the validity of an answer.

Regressive hypnosis is not an exact science. However, because of the nature of abductions where much of the experience may not be easily or consciously recalled, it remains one of the best tools available. Cognitive interviewing is another recognized technique where the subject is asked questions. As Wright admits, there is a level of contamination associated with any research project; however, the project helps to overcome that by using a multitude of skilled, independent sources.

Wright is in the unique position to draw conclusions or make detailed observations from the data, uncovering both commonalities and anomalies or what he calls odd factors. One example is a finding that the great majority of abductees don't report seeing any railings within the spaceship or tour area. But Wright found several cases where rail guards were reported and within these cases research has found commonalities such as the types of beings found on these ships.

From his analysis of the case data, Wright is in a position to make fascinating observations about alleged alien entities, their behavior and how they work. One thing is clear from the data: there appear to be a number of different types or groups of entities with varying abilities and significant evolutional differences. For example, some aliens may simply place their hand on the subject's forehead to induce loss of consciousness or memory, while others administer a liquid syrup as anesthetic.

Interestingly, Wright says it is clear most entity groups use short grays for performing the actual abduction. An away team of short white, gray or blue beings abduct the subject from the home or auto, but usually have no other observed function, says Wright. Additional entities aboard the ship likewise seem to have more narrowly defined duties. Taller beings are often contained within the ship and nearly always appear to hold the most authority. One taller being usually doesn't leave the ship. He is often referred to as a doctor; but he's clearly in charge, says Wright. Assistants to the doctor may be short or tall, but usually tend to be taller. Less appears to be known about the taller beings who stay on the ship, and certainly the media and abduction stories tend to focus on the short grays.

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

Depending on the type of being, technological advancements and perceived missions may vary widely. In the majority of cases, abductions are made via a beam of light used for levitation, as a way to get the subject into the ship, whether from the home or by being led outside to walk into a beam. Beams are often white or bluish white. Odd factors among light beams appear in several cases where subjects describe dust flecks or particles within the beam. The particles tell me that this is probably a completely separate mechanism for levitation, says Wright. Or, in a smaller number of cases, the subject physically walks onto the ship without observing light beams.

Wright has found few predictable patterns or broad commonalities across the database of abductions. However, in addition to the generalizations made here, Wright has been able to make some other findings. While a large number of abductions involve small craft with a single round room, a significant number involve larger ships with numerous rooms, each for a particular purpose and separated by hallways. The majority of cases are solo abductions, where the subject sees no other humans or human-like beings. Interactions with or sighting of other humans and humanoids by the subject have occurred in one-third of the cases. Distinct commonalities exist across numerous cases such as details of a hybrid's appearance or humanoid's uniform, or an immense cave to which the subject is led. Paranormal activity is somewhat common to abduction events, primarily in auditory form, such as unexplained footsteps or crashing noises heard in the abductee's home.

Odd factors include subjects looking down and seeing four long fingers, but being unable to find a mirror to look at themselves. There are also instances where subjects are seemingly lured by animals, such as a deer or owl, which are soon recognized as alien. The notion of an animal is what is first plugged into their mind, says Wright.

Mental telepathy or thought transference is often described. Information is conveyed to the subject in an instant from the entity. The aliens also have some mysterious ways at getting subjects to forget all or parts of an abduction experience, apparently achieved by manipulating the subject's concept of time.

In many cases, the beings use telepathy both for general communication and to communicate to the subject the need to forget the experience, rather than any spoken post-hypnotic suggestion. In a few cases, the being places his hand or fingers on the subject's forehead, seemingly to erase memory of the event.

Most subjects are unable to recall the entire event, but the great majority remember some of the onboard experience. Some don't recall getting there or coming back; they just remember a few minutes on the examining table, says Wright.

ALIEN AGENDAS

Of the proverbial alien agenda', Wright stresses that groups of beings, each with varying levels of abilities, skill sets and technologies, often communicate disparate missions to the subject.

Contrary to belief that all abductees are traumatized, probed or otherwise harassed, Wright says reproduction is only one of several themes which dominate the cases, and a case may have more than one theme. The major underlying themes are:

1. Reproduction, sperm and ova are removed, with the most common procedure the removal of ova. In some cases, embryo implants are made and/or aborted from female subjects.
2. Connection to the aliens or kinship, the subject reaches the conclusion of an innate connection with alien captors which transcends this lifetime as a human. The abductee feels like a fish out of water in their own family, or otherwise disconnected from humanity.
3. A mission, beings communicate to abductees that information is being planted in their minds which they'll later use, whether technical concepts, notions of some great contribution to society, human-alien liaisons, or other high-minded purposes.
4. Destruction of the earth, the subject is shown images of future events, often involving geophysical catastrophe. This save the planet theme has nearly replaced that of nuclear destruction from earlier cases. Some are led to believe they will be safe or otherwise removed from any earth disasters.
5. Government's involvement, the subject sees military or para-military personnel working alongside entities or is otherwise led to believe that the government is involved in working with alien entities.

Some 19 cases involve underground caves and in a few of these the subject has observed military working alongside entities, often sitting at computer equipment. Separately, only two cases involve underground facilities where the room appears manmade and not a cave. Men In Black', despite the popularity of the mysterious government agent image, are a thing of the past, says Wright. They don't appear in his database. However, straight military intelligence or other type of agents do appear, often to intimidate the subject as guys in fatigues, says Wright.

Wright stresses that while the ongoing study uses quantitative analysis techniques, at this point the data isn't statistically reliable or projectable because of the low sample numbers. However, patterns and odd factors found will over time, it is hoped, help to unravel the giant mystery of the abduction phenomenon. To that end, Wright says, The ongoing objective of the project is to provide quality data to participants and other UFO researchers with a legitimate interest.

ULTIMATE ENDS

As to any grand purpose for abductions, Wright says, I believe we are a progeny of one or more of these groups of beings, that we are in effect their genetic cousins. That is why they travel great distances of space and time to get here.

Wright and many others, such as the late Carl Sagan, have argued that abductions beg the question of why aliens would care to come to our star system toward the edge of this galaxy to interact with humans, who, by all accounts, are not at their level of intelligence or evolution? One salient answer comes back to Wright's suggested rationale: we are connected at a fundamental level with these beings going back to our evolutional beginnings.

Wright plans to continue the project indefinitely. Of the denial of the abduction phenomenon by many today, he says, over time, the great numbers getting plugged into my computer are going to wash away all the criticism.

Marcia Jedd is a journalist and marketing researcher. As a journalist her specialties are earth-bound transportation and travel. She watches the skies from Minneapolis, MN.