response 25 of 186:

Sep 18 17:19 UTC 1994

Copyright 1994 Reuters, Limited, July 14, 1994

Memories of UFO's And Other Fantasies Found Easy to Plant

By Gene Emery

Sharon Filip, a Seattle hypnotherapist, vividly remembers a close
encounter with a UFO as a child and later being kidnapped by space
aliens who materialised from thin air.

Chris X recalls the trauma of being separated from his parents in a
shopping mall when he was five years old and how he was helped by a
kindly old man wearing a chequered shirt.

Both are convinced their experiences are real because they remember
them clearly and in detail. But in at least one case the memories are
completely bogus.

The human brain's ability to create false memories of traumatic
moments, from sexual abuse to encounters with extraterrestrials, is
fast becoming a hot topic among psychologists.

"It is possible with enough suggestion to get people to believe they
had entire experiences that never happened," said psychologist
Elizabeth Loftus of the University of Washington in Seattle. "False
beliefs now involve a lot of people."

During a recent conference here sponsored by the Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, researchers
described a string of experiments that showed just how easy it is to
implant memories that mimic recollections of real events.

The researchers also argued that experts -- psychologists, therapists
and others -- are ill-equipped to help patients separate fact from
fantasy.  "Professionals have no 'Pinocchio test' (to determine) when
children are exposed to repeated suggestion," said Stephen Ceci,
professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "We
act as though we do."

In the case of Chris X, identified only by his first name, his
childhood memory of being lost in a shopping mall was planted in a
laboratory experiment in which Loftus and other researchers used
leading questions to suggest the incident had actually happened. The
memory was completely false but Chris X not only came to believe the
event was real, he unconsciously manufactured details.

Even when the research team told him the event was concocted, the
teenager did not believe them.

"I'm not saying every account of alien abduction or sexual abuse arises
this way, but this can help us understand why false memories might be
created," said Loftus. "It dilutes and trivialises the cases of real
abuse."

The phenomenon can destroy lives when it surfaces in cases of alleged
sexual abuse, when a false memory can tear families apart and send
innocent people to jail.

The younger the subject, researchers contend, the easier it is to
create a false memory through suggestion.

"Kids are disproportionately vulnerable to a whole bag of suggestive
techniques," said Ceci.

Tales of UFO abductions, often recalled using the same techniques,
provide some evidence of how the human mind unwittingly manufactures
horrific tales.

Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan, a staunch believer of life in outer
space, said he would love to see evidence that UFOs, or Unidentified
Flying Objects, are from distant worlds, "even if the aliens inside are
a little short, grumpy, sullen and sexually preoccupied."

But, he said, there is no reason to believe the stories when the
evidence falls apart on close examination.

While some experts like University of Kentucky psychologist Robert
Baker argue that elements of UFO abduction stories can easily be
explained by a list of well-known psychological phenomena, others like
Harvard University psychiatrist John Mack insist the experiences may be
real.

Baker contends, for example, that said sleep paralysis can make people
feel terrified while producing hallucinations that provide a seeming
reality.

"When you hypnotise people, you're turning on their imagination. And
when you turn on your imagination, all things are possible," said
Baker. "These experiences seem very real. If they didn't seem real,
they wouldn't be hallucinations."

Baker noted that a number of people who claimed to have been abducted
by space creatures referred to "missing time" in which they were unable
to remember what happened for an hour or two.

"The reason they can't remember anything is that nothing happened," he
said, adding that many people give the same description of aliens
because of images planted by the media.

Mack, however, countered that many of the claims could could not be
based on stories in the media because they were not reported by the
media. "We are dealing with a phenomena that cannot be laughed away,"
said Mack.

While researchers said the motivation for making up experiences may
range from aspirations to fame, money or some other motive, many of
those with bogus memories may use them as a way to deflect blame or
guilt from themselves.

"We all want to believe that what we remember really happened," said
Susan Blackmore, a psychologist at the University of the West of
England in Bristol.  With false memories people "can blame someone else
for their problems."

response 27 of 186:

Sep 22 00:01 UTC 1994

It is interesting that this is getting so much press laterly. I know there
was an article about an inicdet  incident of thisin Reader's Digest in the
last few months, and while manypeople may laught at Rader's Digest as 
being lowbrow, it is *very* widely read.

response 29 of 186:

Sep 24 18:46 UTC 1994

re #26:  Many "memories" of alien abduction involve allegations of
         physical and sexual abuse.

re #28:  There is danger in asking a child about a relatively innocuous
         fictitious incident?

response 31 of 186:

Sep 26 05:05 UTC 1994

The experiment was specifically designed to create a false memory.
Regardless of the harmlessness of the memory, the situation has to 
following dangers:
-- The experimentee may feel an uncertainty about reality in general,
due to the demonstrated ease of fabricating one memory
-- The experimentee becomes convinced an untrue memory, which is then
"passed on" as fact to friends and neighbors, thus harming the individual's
social contacts.
-- Fucking with other peoples minds is wrong wrong WRONG regardless of
the motivation.
While Chris X developed the memory, the article states that Loftus et al
asked a series of deliberately leading questions.  victor's "Satanic
Panic" shows some of these "leading questions" (not, surely, the ones
used in the experiment, but possibly of the same ilk).
There aren't leading.  They're constructing questions.
As to the response:  but if it proves that false memory syndrome exists,
isn't it a good thing?  No.  There is already evidence of FMS outside of the
lab setting, and lab-external evidence is always better than lab-internal
evidence.  Maybe we should lock some humans in a room with cigarette
smoke for several years to prove they get lung cancer and emphyzema?

response 33 of 186:

Oct 3 03:22 UTC 1994

No.  Of course not.  But do we need to understand the human mind so badly
that's it's worth it to screw a few up in the process (deliberately)?

response 35 of 186:

Oct 11 05:57 UTC 1994

I probably am.  I do that often.  I disagree with the obviousness
that inhumane human experimentation is avioded.  I know plenty of 
academics who have disregard for their fellow non-academic humans,
and I likewise have heard of some fairly cruel psychological tests,
but I would hope that in the main such cruelty is avioded.  (The fact
that many fields have codified codes of ethics indicate that there
are those who would violate them if they didn't exist -- we don't
need laws for things people don't do).

response 37 of 186:

Nov 26 19:38 UTC 1994

The assertions in the first paragraph of #36 are incorrect.  The name,
"False Memory Syndrome," has not yet made it into DMS, and has been
advanced primarily by a non-psychologist educational organization.  But
the reality of false memories has been well known in psychological circles
for many decades.  The classic example being Piaget's "false memory" of
being kidnapped as a small child.  There are a sizeable number of
psychologists who accept FMS as a real condition.  These are the experts
who testify at trials.  People like Elizabeth Loftus and Stephen Ceci --
high profile, well-respected, highly informed research psychologists.

In truth, the non-expert work has been on the side of those advancing
the "videotape" theory of memory and the concept that any memory of
incest (or even a belief in the absence of memory or evidence) depicts
reality.  See, e.g., "The Courage to Heal."

There is *great* dispute within the psychological community as to the
reality of certain "dissociative disorders" -- with some questioning if
any actually exist.  The "rebuttal" of false memory presented in the
non-cited article described in #36 is entirely hollow -- there are a lot
of recognized psychological conditions that only recently made it into
the DSM.  The "logic" of that rebuttal would have us believe that "Battered
Spouse Syndrome" didn't exist before it was given a name and recorded in
DSM.  That "Battered Child Syndrome" *still* doesn't exist.

#36 also displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how memory works.
People who witness accidents *do* forget critical details, such as the
colors and makes of vehicles, who was driving a given vehicle, the
directions the vehicles were heading, the speeds of the vehicles, who
was driving a given vehicle, etc.  In an experiment after the explosion
of the Space Shuttle, Challenger, a psychologist had a group of students
record their detailed recollections of the event.  None were entirely
accurate, and some were very inaccurate.  Three years later, the
experiment was repeated.  Not only did the accounts differ from each
other -- every student's account also differed from the earlier account.
Some of the students had great difficulty accepting the reality of a
videotape of the event, as it clashed with their "memories."

Dr. Loftus has demonstrated that a significant number of adults are
receptive to false memories of childhood events, and that they will
provide great detail to implanted skeleton memories of these non-events.
Her classic example is that, simply by having a relative ask a person
if s/he recalls being lost at a shopping mall at the age of five, a
significant number of people will not only remember the event, but
will remember it in vivid detail -- even though it did not occur.  Dr.
Ceci has shown, through his work with children, that non-intrusive
questioning over a period of time can cause young children to develop
vivid, believed memories of non-events, also embellishing them with
substantial detail.  His classic example involves the weekly interviews
of preschoolers who were asked, "Do you remember the time your finger
got caught in a mousetrap and you had to go to the hospital?" at one
single point during the interview, the rest of which had no relation to
that question.  A significant number, after a few weeks, started answering
"yes," and after a few more weeks were giving detailed accounts of what
happened -- where the mousetrap was, how they got their fingers stuck
in it, how much it hurt, what their parents did, what the hospital was
like, etc.

Dr. Lenore Terr, a staunch opponent of "recovered memory" theory, asserts
that only repeated traumatic experiences will be suppressed, and that
people will have good recall of single traumatic events.  Dr. Bessel
Van Der Kolk, another opponent, asserts that single traumatic events can
be "suppressed" in that they are "not actually experienced" by the victim,
and that they can be "relived" at a later date, when the person will
experience and remember the event for the first time.  Yes -- even among
the most staunch opponents of FMS there is anything but a consistent
theory of how or when repression works.

What would the author of #36 give as the explanation for a person's
"recovering" and believing memories of events that never occurred?

response 39 of 186:

Nov 27 17:18 UTC 1994

the only article I am able to quote from, i must reprint in it entirity
from survivorship Vol. V , #! 93
"Point counterpoint...'False memory syndrom' "
Following are a letter from Kathy Pezedek, Ph.D. introducing her Letter to the 
Editor of the APS OBSERVER(published by the American Psycological Society);
the Letter to the Editor, the editorial response; and her ensuing rebuttal:

Dear Colleagues:
     I am a Cognitive Psychologist who does research on memory factors relevant
to Eyewitness Identification.  I, as many of you, have recantly become aware
of the activities of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.  I am particularly
concerned that some psychologists may be testifying as expert witnesses in 
child sexual abuse cases without a sound leg or scientific basis for the
 admissiblity of the "evidence" they provide.
        The purpose of this letter is to provide a brief background in the 
legal criteria for admitting expert testimony, and then to this point, to
familiarize you with a Letter to the Editor that I recentmly published in the
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OBSERVER.
        The standards for admitting expert testimony are based on the 1923
case of Frye V. United States(293 F. 1013[D.C. Cir. 1923]).  Basically, the
Frye test holds that scientific evidence presented by an expert witness in
court "must be sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in
the particular field in which it belongs"(Frye V. United States, 1923, p. 1014)
        Currently, expert testimony involving reference to "false memory
syndrome" does not satisfy the "general acceptance" criteria of the Frye
test.  Quoting from my attached letter,  "... among psychologists studying 
memory, there is no such thing as'false memory syndrome'. A search of the 
PsyLit database(Jan. 1974-Sept. 1992) yeilda ZERO references citing 'false
memory syndrom".
        I am circulating this information because I am concerned that
expert testimony in this and every area of psychology be scientifically
based and presented by qualified experts.  Please feel free to distribute
this information as widely as you think may be helpful. I do ask , however, 
that if this letter is published, that it be published in full and not 
excerpted.
Regards,
  Kathy Pezdek Ph.D., Professor of Psychology  
  The Claremont Graduate School

Dear Editor:
        I was suprised to read in the article, "Remembering 'Respressed'
Abuse"(OBSERVER< July1992), as well as to hear in thesymposium at the APS 
convention upon which the article was based, that the majority of "evidence"
offered in favor of "false memory syndrome" was anecdotal.  Ironically, the
only Letter to the Editor in the OBSERVER in response to the article
(Ansbacher's letter, Sept 1992) also reliedon anecdotal evidence to 
demonstrate "false memory syndrome"- this being a storyfrom Alfred adler's
auto biography.
        I agree that anecdotes can tell a punchy story, but since when have
we used them as scientific evidence.  This habit can become especially
dangeroius in an applied domain where lay people then use this "evidence" to
defend acused perpetrators of chiild abuse in courts of law.  The pointof
this letter is to make clear that aAMONG PSYCHOLOGISTS STUDING MEMORY, THERE
IS NO SUCH THING AS "FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME."A search of the PsycLit database
(1/74 - 9/92) yielded ZERO referencesciting "false memory syndrome." Yes,
there is some relevant research on the suggestiblity of memory, but no
evidence for a "syndrome" involing the fabrication of repressed memory for
traumatic events, as was presented at the APS symposium.
        In fact, the term "false memory syndrome"(FMS) was apparently
coined by the "False Memory Syndrome Foundation." Accordingto their
brochure and newsletter, this Foundation seeks to understand the "truth"
about FMS, and provide counseling and legal assistance for the "primary and 
secondary victums" of FMS  (i.e., the accused perpetrators of incest and
sexual abuse and thier victumws).  However, even the name of the Foundation
beliBes theimr objectivity; their primary agenda is to undermine the
credibility of people who in their adulthood remember incidents of sexual abuse
from their childhood.
        Clearly there is a need for some serious researching in the area of  
        repressed memory for traumatic events and I hope that this cry serves
        as our
call to actions.  But until the data are in, at least SOME DATA, let's stick to
the standards we cognative psychologists are famous for and remember that
silence is golden!
        Kathy Pezdek, Ph.D.

OBSERVER  Editor's Note: Try searching the literature for reference to the 
confabulation," a term used in PsycLit since 1973, classified there as a 
behavior disorder, and defined as "Giving untruthful answers to questions
about situations or events that are not recalled due to memory impairment.
Confabulation in not a conscious attempt to deceive."
(Letters to the Editor  APS OBSERVER, Nov. 1992, p.37)
Lee Herring, Editor, APS OBSERVER

Dear Mr. herring:
         Thank you for publishing my Letter yto the Editor in the Nov. 1992 APS
OBSERVER.  As you may remember, my letter offered a critique of "false
memory syndrome."
        I wonder, however, why you found it necessary to qualify my Letter with
an Editor's Note.  You made the point that although there may be zero citations
in the PsycLit database to the term "false Memory syndrome" there may be
references to the teerm "confabrication."
        I know that there is a literature on confabrication as well as on 
suggestibility of memory.  I have published research on these topics myself.
But , in the research literature, a typical  example of a memory confabulation
is successfully suggesting to a subject that a stop sign they saw was really
a yield sign.  This is a far cry from suggesting to an adult that when they
were a child, they were repeatedly sexually abused by thier parent.  Quoting
from my Letter,"Yes, there is some relavant research on suggestibility of
memory, but no evidence for a 'syndrome' involving the fabrication of represses
memory for traumatic events as was presented at the APS symposium."
        Also, to the lay audience, calling anything a "syndrome" appears to
elevate the concept to a level of general acceptability as if it were
a diagnostic category in the DSM-III.  My point is that not only is
there no general acceptability of false memory syndromeas a syndrome,but
there are nocitations at all to false memory syndrome in the PsycLit  
database!  If the False Memory Syndrome Foundation were instead called
the Confabultion Foundation, may of us woud have fewer doubts about
its veracity.
        Now, why would you need to qualify this point?  I feel that your
Editor's Notes was an attempt to undermine the point of my Letter and
offer unwarranted support for the notion of false memory syndrome.  I think
that inserting your personal response to my Letter was inappropriate.
        Kathy Pezdek, Ph.D.
  END ARTICLE
To the writer of #37, as you can see may research in to this subject is 
noteworthy, and my quatifications are greater then you gave me credit for.
Even if you still doubt my qualifications, I doubt you could serpass the above
writer's qualifications or expertise in the feild of memory research.
By all means, check the articals I have citied, unless I made a serious
type-o the information is there for any to request.

response 41 of 186:

Nov 28 01:44 UTC 1994

        I was going to join in this discussion, but I shall decline, as I see
that you Mr. Larson are not willing to give opposing viewpoints a second
thought, nor a modicum of respect. I suggest that, while the scientific
journals you cite are a good point of referance, I daresay that thylcine's
newsletters are of equal import.
        If you consider this viewpoint odd, consider this; The survivor mags
carry the weight of having been authored BY survivors! The majority of your
journals do not! And. even IF some of these survivors have "false Memories"
it is doubtful that there are many. I should also say that I saw no where
in thylacine's writings where she said anything about a distinct checklist;
she merely seemed to be referring to a group of psychological side-effects,
that mental health professionals use to ascertain the validity of such
experiences. And, before you slam her for her credentials, perhaps we should
see yours?
        The fact is, aaron, that you have been uneccessarily hostile and
reactionary to someone who merely wanted an intelligent discussion on the
subject. The sad fact is, the some of the founding members have gone on record
as supporting pedophilia.. something which I cannot easily dismiss. The FMS
Foundation's ties to that is most unsettling. Also, the woman who was quoted in
the letters IS a professional Memory researcher of a University, if you read
the opening to those letters. I trust her ascertations much more than yours,
friend.
        AS I stated above, I WAS going to join in, but you are obviously not
        willing to have an open discussion regarding FMS, so I will decline,
        except to point out the above Goodnight, aaron.

response 43 of 186:

Nov 28 03:36 UTC 1994

It is destessing to see some one so hoostilely and vehemently dis reguard 
what I wrote in the above entries when it is obvious that you could not
have read these enteries thoroughly.  This is obvious, aaron, because
most of your concerns in #37, were delt with in #36, and I am sure of this
because I went back and doubled checked this.  Now you response to #38 and 39 
bears little resembalence to what was in those two enteries.
Just one example is saying  the woman who wrote the above editorial is
obvious unqualified to address the issue of memories, when she is a memory
researcher at a graduate school.  I shall not bother too list all the
discrepencies.
The articles I mentioned I also included the addresses and all pertinant
references (dates, issue #, etc.) these pertain directly to the topic
at hand and there is plenty of background to allow any one interested 
to double check them
I can not say the same for the article you have sighted, the articles are not 
easily double checked(atleast not as presented), secondly, the information
in them is related to memory but not directly related to this topic.
Also, some of the founders of the FMS Foundation being on record
as advocating pedipheolia(they might have withdrawn it, but it is still on
record) and with some of the founderes accused of sexual abuse by their
children (some accusations have not been withdrawn) ..I find this very
pertainant tho this subject.  Especially since the psychologists you most
frequently sight are working with the FMS foundation(that is what you said).
Since the basis of the foundation is questionable, the work of these
proffessional is also questionable until backed up by some one who does not
have a  vested interest in promoting FMS.   Warping what I or any one else
actually says to prove a point does not make t  that point any more correct. 
Usually it undermines it. Aaron since you show no interest in actually
discussing anything, I bid you good bye.

response 45 of 186:

Nov 28 22:56 UTC 1994

        Ah, more participants. Much better. I daresay that it depends how
        closely the allegations match the purpose of the organization. Planned
        parenthood has nothing to do directly with racial issues, but FMS Found
        has much to do with child abuse

response 47 of 186:

Dec 1 18:45 UTC 1994

Memory is a weird thing, or at least mine is.  Biographical 
tidbits: 

1. When I was in kindergarten a well-meaning teacher 
volunteered me to sing "Silent Night," solo, at the school's 
Christmas pageant.  I clearly remember practicing the song and 
being almost painfully nervous about it.  I remember wishing 
it were all over, or that I could get out of it somehow.  The 
next thing I knew, the pageant was over and I was being told 
by my parents and by the teachers how well I had done and how 
proud they all were of me.  But I had absolutely no 
recollection of the pageant or of singing my solo.  

As it began to dawn on me that the pageant had already taken 
place, I started getting puzzled.  In particular, I remember a 
conversation with my mother in which I asked her when the 
pageant had taken place, and why I hadn't been in it.  She 
gave me a funny look and assured me that I *had* sung my solo 
in it and had been a big hit.  For a while, I suspected that 
people were simply teasing me.  Then it finally hit me that I 
really must have sung in the pageant and somehow blanked the 
whole experience out.  All I can think is that I was so scared 
that, by the time my solo came up, I was on automatic.  "I" 
absolutely didn't want to be there, so "I" wasn't there.  My 
"blackout" became a topic of conversation in the family.  
Years later, we would talk about it and I would make renewed 
efforts to remember; but try as I might, I never did "recover" 
that memory.  

2. I have also had the "Proustian" experience of being 
reminded by something trivial of an experience I hadn't 
thought of in many years, and suddenly having at all come 
back, including details so vivid and so intense I actually 
*felt* it.  A whiff of summer night air a couple of years ago, 
and I'm fourteen years old again, sitting at my desk in my 
room by the open window, listening to Vaughan Williams' 
Pastoral Symphony and writing adolescent Whitmanesque poetry 
in a spiral-bound notebook with the new fountain pen my uncle 
had given me.  I can see the still-wet ink glistening on the 
page where my pen had stopped briefly.  It's high summer.  The 
air is fragrant.  The surface of my desk is sticky where the 
green blotter doesn't cover it.  My dog Mickey is sleeping by 
my feet.  And so on...  I could fill the screen with details.  
But where had that memory been hiding?  If I hadn't smelled 
the summer night air at just that moment, would I ever have 
remembered it?  

3. And one summer afternoon in 1951, when I was eight years 
old, I was riding my bicycle down Sumner Avenue in 
Springfield, Massachusetts, with my friend Stewie Wilansky, 
when, right at the corner of Forest Park Avenue, the thought 
came to me that I would remember every detail of this 
unremarkable scene for the rest of my life.  And here I am, 
forty-three years later, telling you about it.  

Has anyone else had experiences like these?

response 49 of 186:

Dec 3 00:46 UTC 1994

Interesting discussion.  I'm always suspicious of peole who have, not just
strong, but vehement opinions about things for which a definitive answer
hasn't been found yet.  I can understand an abuse survivor feeling very
strongly about a recovered memory of abuse because of the deep injury
done to them.  But I haven't been able to figure out why folks get 
"het up" about the possibility of false memory/recovered memory unless,
of course, they or someone close to them has been hurt by an accusation.
I'm not implying anything by this -- I'm just expressing puzzlement.

What seems likely to me is that some memories are authentic, some are
false or distorted, and the big problem is that we can't tell one from
the other and people are getting hurt.  I'll be surprised if a definitive
answer _ever_ surfaces.