Secret Life: Firsthand Accounts of Ufo Abductions [Hardcover]

David M. Jacobs (Author), John E. Mack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1992

Interviews with fifty-seven people who claim to have been abducted by aliens paint a composite of alien beings who use special technology to study human sexuality for the purpose of producing hybrid children. 35,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Next time you glance at your watch and find a few minutes missing, better rush to your local hypnotist--you, too, might have been unwittingly kidnapped by a UFO. So Jacobs seems to suggest, estimating that over a million Americans have been abducted in recent years. ``We have been invaded,'' he proclaims, warning that ``the aliens have powers and technology greatly in advance of ours.'' Odd words, coming from a professor of history at Temple Univ., and a sign of the extreme oddity of the phenomenon, which Jacobs explores through extensive structural analysis. Each stage of a typical abduction, including the most sensational--the sexual encounters and reproductive experiments found in nearly all cases--are scrutinized through firsthand transcripts of hypnotic-regression interviews with more than 60 victims. The conclusion? That aliens are impregnating earth women in order to create quasi-human ``hybrids'' for some unknown purpose. The mind reels, but the sober, obviously terrified abductees make a strong case for the veracity of their experience. Jacobs's own presentation is a mixed blessing: His scholarship is punctilious, but he reveals the zeal of the converted in his debunking, after slight analysis, of all earth-bound explanations for UFO abductions (hysterical contagion, psychogenic fugue states, temporal-lobe dysfunction, and the like). By bringing solid scholarship to the pioneering efforts of Bud Hopkins and the hot prose of Whitley Strieber, this marks the next stage in UFO abduction research--and is just as likely to fly off the supermarket bookracks. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher

In Secret Life, Professor David M. Jacobs of Temple University takes us into the private world of those abducted by aliens, letting them describe in their own words what it is like to be abducted. Based on interviews with sixty individuals and more than 300 independently corroborated accounts, Secret Life presents the most complete and accurate picture of alien abductions ever compiled. Dr. Jacobs takes the reader on a minute-by-minute journey through a typical abduction experience and describes in detail the bizarre physical, mental and reproductive procedures that abductees claim have been administered by small alien beings. Jacobs draws from these interviews a profoundly unsettling reason behind the abductions: aliens are conducting a complex reproductive experiment involving the conception, gestation. or incubation of human and alien hybrid beings. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671748572
• ISBN-13: 978-0671748579
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #109,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is THE abduction book to read., June 10, 2000

By 

Reticuli (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Life: Firsthand, Documented Accounts of Ufo Abductions (Paperback)

There is no other book which so properly recounts reliable eyewitness testimony of this nature. Even Hopkins' "Intruders" doesn't quite reach this level. Mack's "Abduction" has too many new-age laced accounts. The conclusions and theories of Strieber's "Communion" *are* new-ageism, which he appears to now regret. This is the one to get if you wish to hear accounts of level-headed abductees who, I can guarantee, aren't going to turn around and say they made it all up, as happened in the case of Mack's.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear And Systematic Presentation, September 21, 2005

By 

M. Packo (Stratford, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secret Life: Firsthand, Documented Accounts of Ufo Abductions (Paperback)

This is one of the very few truly essential UFO abduction studies.

Dr. Jacobs' research was methodical, his reasoning is
uncluttered by any sort of cant or intellectual bias,
his presentation direct and concise. Studious without being
dull; quietly, thoughtfully provocative.

No dramatization was necessary in these accounts;
no New Age meanderings intrude.
Historical and cultural and social context
is always explored objectively.

An absolute requirement for anyone at all curious about the abduction phenomenon.
Likewise, a must-read for anyone considering delving into Dr. Jacobs'
even more provocative, intellectually rigorous
and carefully presented sequel to this book:
The Threat.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best summary on UFO's, April 25, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Secret Life: Firsthand, Documented Accounts of Ufo Abductions (Paperback)

While some books center around a person or group of individuals from a specific area, this one concerns a variety of people and experiences. It provides a summary of various stages of abduction, and is easy to read. If I could only have one book in my UFO library, this would be it.