Customer Reviews

Witnessed

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sometimes, and while reading books that deal with the Ufo-aliens-alien abduction issue i feel that i perfectly understand the "nonbelievers"...If you're going to read a book which purpotedly accounts for the sighting and the witnessing of an alien space craft which adducted human beings from a very central part of a city, well, then, you'd expect the author that wrote the book to have gone to greater lengths than the ones he went through.
And having said that, I should add that i would count myself in as a "believer" (however naive and superficial if not religious such a term is)..
But: when you claim that a spacecraft which was very brightly lit came to a quite central part of a city, abducted someone by elevating her and pulling her through her apartment window, and then dove into a nearby river, i would expect (and others too) that you would find way more witnesses than those accounted for in the book.
Hopkins, the author, offers the abductee herself, 2 ex-secret service (?) agents, and a central political figure as witnesses. Now from these, only the real name of the abductee is used as the two agents offer whatever "evidence" they do on condition of anonymity and the same goes for the politician who also saw the happening. For reasons best know to the author, he claims that he couldnt find more witnesses even though that seems highly unlikely for a very populated area such as that where the incident took place.

As far as other evidence is concerned, he offers the hypnotism sessions he conducted with the abductee as well as some drawings and samples of sand. It's not all that shoddy as I'm describing so far though.
Even with so "little"evidence what Hopkins offers (if entirely true) is nevertheless compelling. You do of course have to take him at his word, but if you do, then it seems that an ultraweird sighting and abduction took place in the end of the 80's..One where an alien spacecraft totally disregarded whether it was attracting massive attention (as if it was intending to?) and went forth with its mission.
This is by no means a new "feature" in alien abduction literature and/or lore. During other sightings as well, craft and their crew have been "acting" as if they couldn't have been less bothered about attracting attention.
The one new element Hopkins offers goes beyond the sighting itself and it adds a whole new dimension to what's possibly involved in alien abductions.
Through his hypnotism sessions and subsequent crosschecking with the other 2 witnesses the author discovers a common "childhood" among these formerly not familiar to each other people, a common childhood that seems to be monitored by "beings" that all 3 witnesses recall in detail and who seem to have followed up the whole process with an abduction at a mauch later date when one of the witnesses (a woman) has already grown to an adult. Further investigation by Hopkins shows that the other 2 witnesses may at one point also have been abducted.

The possibility that another species is actually setting up "separate childhoods" for us, where not only are we monitored (so our behavior over a long period of time can be observed)but we are also beeing set up with future "mates" so the structure of human relationships can be studied in detail is -to put it ultramildly- very interesting...

Overall, this is a book addressed to those who are already in "familair" territory with the issue. I dont see how someone who has never read such a book wont be "alienated" (pun intended) with the offerings in it.

Believers will believe and nonbelievers will not believe. To believe the story of a real-life abduction and how it affected those who witnessed it, you have to trust the author who writes it. I must say, Hopkins seems like a nice guy and he also seems believable. Reading the book, you get to know the guy and how he does his investigatory work in trying to verify whether this incident actually happened.

Problem is, of course, that reading the book is an act of faith. You will never really know if the sources made anything up. On one hand, you think, these sources have no motive to lie, and too many people would have to conspire to weave a web of lies and remain consistent in reporting the story to Hopkins. Based on their lifestyles, social class and professions, several critical sources could not possibly have known each other before the witnessed abduction. What what about the power of suggestion? There are no real answers, but this is a great read. It will change the way you react to UFO stories.

And I'll say this: if even HALF this book is true, we are in big trouble. BIG trouble. Read the book to find out why.

I've enjoyed other books by Budd Hopkins and this one met my expectations. I feel for the people who have lost their reality, and that's why I say their "reality rug" is gone.

Budd has written about how certain people are repeatidly abducted throughout their life. Through hypnosis the main events concern Linda. Linda finds out she's been abducted numerous times starting when she was very young. How does one's brain process these tramatic events? How can she protect her children? How does a marriage survive inconceivable events like this?

Then Linda is abducted by two men that witnessed a particular event. They want to find out if she's a human or a "half-breed". She is fighting for her life on an earthly plane and with her alien abductors...and then it gets even more strange. I won't tell you everything, but let's just say, "the butler didn't do it". :-)

I started reading this genre, because I saw a white cigar shaped object floating over a lake one night with my parents and siblings. We were out watching the bats fly around. Never found out what it So very glad for that!

This book reads somewhere between Conan Doyle and Frederick Forstyh. Its documentation is superb and Hopkin's arguments are solid and very convincing. It is simply inconceivable that this story is an elaborate hoax or a mass hallucination. The pulling together of all the different threads connected to this particular abduction tale is so meticulous that sceptics and cynics are well advised to stay away from this one. Of course there will be those who see the hand of the devil behind all of this and who can say for sure, but I believe that every thinking man in America ought to make it his business to read this book, and keep it filed away for possible future reference, because surely the fog around aliens and alien abductions will start to clear one day. What separates this book from other "abduction" accounts is that the Brooklyn Bridge abduction, or rather the subsequent investigation of it, reveals a pattern of not only selective abduction but selective co! upling and fertilisation - fertilisation through specific generations. In other words the aliens seem to be breeding their own genetic mix of humans. Why would they want to do this? Well, nobody can give the answer to that question of course. And where do the aliens come from? That too, remains an unknown, in fact very little is known about the aliens other than their appearances. But if you have any interest at all in this type of phenomena, this is the book to read.

Let me start by saying that I respect Budd Hopkins, I even like his recent book..."Sigh Unseen"...and that I`m not denying UFOs/UAP which by all means are real, but abductions other than that of Barney and Betty Hills, sounding to good to be true, for the most part are not, I do not mind that some people believed to had been abducted, but I have a problem with LIARS plain and simple. See UFOs are real in a sense that had been proven time and again beyond any reasonable doubt by credible witnesses all around the world in key governmental positions and corroborated by civilians and have been investigated and proven by professional researchers such as Leslie Kean, John Alexander, Richard Dolan, Robert Hasting, Stanton Friedman, Allen Hynek, etc and UAP/UFOs might be secret man-made air-crafts or inter-dimensional or inter-planetary travelers, who knows but there`s no doubt they exist, that being said.
Honestly, what I`m disappointed about are people such as Romanek, Strieber and Linda corteli/Napolitano, she is a liar, she took advantages of Budd Hopkins care and good nature, bottom line she lied no reason to panic here. The whole "Witnessed; The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions" saga was all made-up. Check Carol Rainey, she is the ex-wife of abduction researcher Budd Hopkins and she is spilling the beans about how Lindas own handwriting was found on the envelopes sent to Budd hopkins with the alleged testimony by the 2 security U.N agents, who supposedly were guarding the Secretary-General of the United Nations Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, this worked of deceitfulness has been corroborated by Roger Rubin a forensic Document Examiner expert of 23 years(his expertise have been admitted into several courts in several states 79 times). And 1 of the other witnesses "Janet Kimball" whose sketching the exact UFO, matching Linda's style of crayon drawings, seems to good to be true, well it isn`t truth.
Check youtube; A Key Witness in the Linda Cortile UFO Abduction Case.mov

Lets not make of Ufology a religion...we have too many of those already, lets keep it real!

By far, this book on Alien Abductions is one of the best I have ever read and was so well written. It was almost like reading a Dean Koontz novel except more frightening by the possibility of this being true. Having had my own similar experiences, I have no doubt that it was true! How this woman was able to escape not her alien captors, but her human ones, will amaze you. And that there are such people supposedly working within the government ranks is too frightening! Read this book to learn more than you want to know!

I read this book about a year ago and have to agree with the other reviewers: it is absolutely tops, though Whitley paved the way with "Communion" and Hopkins followed with more gems. I am a fan of some (not all) of these tales, having had some UFO-related experiences of my own and being a writer/novelist I like the vivid, well-written ones like Witnessed.

This one was a true consciousness-raiser, which isn't an easy thing re. the subject matter. I think one of the reason people want this stuff "proven" beyond a reasonable doubt is that it is simply too scary to accept. I have had moments when it came crashing in on me - the fact, the truth of it - and after a time I had to back away because it was too overwhelming. Remember those cartoons you saw about Hiroshima? The ones where people were enjoying their lovely day in their lovely home or nice job, playing with their cat or feeding their cute baby or just daydreaming about what they wanted to do next...and the bomb dropped out of the beautiful sky, totally unexpected? I remember how that little scenario seared my soul for several weeks - months - afterward. In fact, years later I still catch glimpses of those scenes and shudder. Well, that's what it's like to realize, down to your toes, that alien life does, in fact, exist, and yes, it has been here and can do whatever the hell it wants to and with us. Not that it's evil or anything. Just that something far huge-er than us comes, now and then, among us. That's what Bud Hopkins' books do - they kind of "goose" us with this knowledge.

Bud - please give us the follow-up soon. (I'm an "experience" junkie!)

I read the book three times, strolled near the apartment complex where it happened, and even spoke to some people in the building.Most didnt know anything about it although one lady told me that people told her that the street was lit up. She however,slept through the night without incident. My question to Mr. Hopkins: How come you did not make a greater effort to track down witnesses in this neighborhood where thousands LIVE? You wrote in your book that you d9id not know how. Also- Did any new witnesses come forward since the book came out? Why dont you have a website where people can ask these questions? One more- How was your witness able to sketch the area so well after seeing the object only a few minutes on the bridge? If you will not answer these and other questions people will always doubt your story. Otherwise the book is a great read.

Witnessed is truly one of the most bizarre and intriguing stories I have ever read. The author writes about a group of seemingly unrelated people that have a secret life involving dreams, UFO's, and aliens. The characters become aware of their relationship in a most bizarre and unexpected way suggesting a conspiracy of mind boggling proportions. The author then backs up the first bizarre account with numerous others reinforcing the suggestion that something unbelievable is going on in the world. The book does not offer any answers to the UFO puzzle and poses many more questions than it answers. The book reveals a tangent to the UFO phenomenon that has not been revealed before. Well researched and written, Witnessed is probably the most significant work on aliens and UFO's since Communion or Missing Time.

This is a very well written book on abduction and keeps one interested throughout the book. It seems almost unbelievable that it is a true story and captures your emotion to the limit and beyond.