Since the beginning of the modern era of UFOs back in 1947, there has been a surprising number of cases involving the death, injury, or healing of witnesses to UFOs. Some cases seem to be the result of an accident; the witness gets too close to the object in question and is harmed unintentionally, possibly by the object's power source. Other cases however seem to involve the UFO or its occupants intentionally harming or helping the witness. Such actions have naturally led to speculation as to the intentions of any alleged alien visitors. This project is an attempt to collect and analyze these injury and healing cases.

The origins of this project date back to the early 1990's to when I had only a minor interest in the subject of UFOlogy. I took out numerous books on the subject one afternoon, including "Confrontations" by Dr. Jacques Vallee. Vallee's book is on encounters taking place in Brazil; encounters that often involved injury or death to the witnesses! This was something relatively new to me. I was aware of a very small number of cases that could be described as rather dubious in nature. I also knew of a few tragic accidents, such as the Mantell case (involving the death of a pilot chasing a UFO that was possibly identified as a balloon). "Confrontations" however provided numerous encounter cases that seemed to involve UFOs intentionally harming witnesses. Whether this was proof of an intentionally malignant attitude on the part of the phenomenon was unclear. Questions about the reality of the phenomenon aside, the book made me wonder if there were more injury cases out there that I wasn't aware of, and if there were, did these cases support the hypothesis that the phenomenon is dangerous to humankind.

Over the years as I read more books on the subject, I began to take notes on any cases I read of that involved injury, death, disappearance or healing. Expecting to find only a few, I quickly amassed a surprisingly large number of cases. These cases were a lot more widespread than I had initially thought. While most of the reports involved relatively mild and temporary injuries, there have been several UFO-related deaths that demand investigation. We need to examine these cases to see if it is a sign of either a hostile force or a dangerous natural phenomenon.

One could forgive a novice for thinking that a relatively cursory examination of such cases would provide us with an answer to the origin and nature of the phenomenon. The more experienced readers among us will know that solutions to any UFO-related problem are never that easy. The phenomenon in general, and this problem in particular, are full of complex absurdities and illogical inconsistencies. For example, some experiencers (victims might be a better word) are seemingly targeted at random for acts of violence. Other witnesses are able to approach quite closely and even touch these objects without any ill effects resulting from their actions. Others however seem to suffer problems when they are no closer that 50 metres from the object.

There were numerous different kinds of sources for the cases. Most however came from various books on UFOs. Approximately 55 different books were used for this project. Magazine articles, Internet websites, and Internet email discussion lists also provided me with information.

Given the wide variety of sources, the quality and quantity of information for the cases varied considerably. Many of the reports were not provided by eyewitnesses but by investigators. A couple of the cases can best be described by the familiar phrase: "I knew a person who knew a person..."The lack of information for many of the cases presented difficulties, particularly when trying to classify cases and describe the injuries involved. For example, 40 of the 85 burn cases were of unknown severity, while many others were described merely as either "severe" or "minor" in the literature. Such third person reporting significantly limited the extent of the study.

It can also be expected that the accuracy of the information that was present varied considerably as well. While there was some attempt at weeding out obvious hoaxes, it is likely that several none-the-less found their way into the database. Some of the "disappearance" cases, primarily involving the alleged loss of U.S. Air Force aircraft attempting to intercept UFOs are prime candidates given the sketchy evidence.

Something must be said about the latest craze in ufology: "alien abductions." Most abduction accounts I found that involved alleged injury I intentionally left out of the database. As many of these accounts are remembered years after they allegedly occurred (often through the use of hypnosis), the accuracy of the memories are questionable. Often such facts as the date of the encounter are unknown. Linking injuries to alleged abductions in these circumstances is very risky. For this reason, the reliability of the database could be better maintained by not including many of the abduction accounts. Only those cases that provided a clear and direct link to the alleged abduction were included.

Five basic categories were used for the survey: temporary injury, permanent injury, disappearance, death, and healing. A handful of cases involved a strange combination of both healing and injury and were classified as such. It should be noted that the counts refer to cases, not the actual numbers of experiencers in the database who were harmed or healed. For example, 272 reports of temporary injuries do not mean there were 272 injuries, only 272 cases. Several of the cases involved multiple people being injured.

Some Numbers:

Type

(Numbers don't add up to 328 as some cases fit in more than one category.)

The majority of the injuries and deaths came from the United States. This is not surprising given the large number of investigators living there. This simply results in more reports being recorded and then being made available to the public.

Breakdown of Injury and Death Cases by Country (%)

Chart Depicting Breakdown by Country

Less easily explainable however is the large number of cases coming from Brazil and Argentina. While undoubtedly good investigators exist in these countries, the number of investigators in South America is much smaller than that in North America. Yet almost as many cases occurred in South as in North America. Furthermore, many of these South American cases took place in very hard to reach locations making it that much harder for them to come to light. One wonders how many more sightings occur every year but remain unknown to the general public and the UFO community.

Chart Depicting Breakdown by Continent

Not only does Brazil have an abnormally large number of physiological effect cases, but also an abnormally large number of cases involving serious injury. Most of the injuries in the United States were minor (sunburn, conjunctivitis), but Brazil had numerous close encounters that resulted in serious injury and even death to the witness.

A large number of the Brazilian cases occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Strange craft (of varying shapes and sizes) began attacking local populations, often wounding and killing people by hitting them with some sort of light beam fired from the objects. The situation become so frightening that in Colares, people began fleeing their homes like refugees escaping a war zone. A medical doctor who stayed in the area and attended to the victims, Dr. Wellaide Cecim Carvalho de Oliveira stated the symptoms included:

1) A feeling of weakness; some could hardly walk

2) Dizziness and headaches

3) Local losses of sensitivity. Numbness and trembling

4) Pallid complexion.

5) Low arterial pressure.

6) Anemia, with low hemoglobin levels.

7) Blackened skin where the light had hit, with several red-purple circles, hot and painful, 1 inch to 1 1/4 inches in diameter.

8) Two puncture marks inside the red circles resembling mosquito bites, hard to the touch.

9) Hair in the blackened area fell out and did not rejuvenate, as if follicles had been destroyed.

10) No nausea or diarrhea.

(Vallee, Confrontations, pp. 122-123)

Most of these symptoms described by the doctor are quite common for UFO injury cases. The only things out of the ordinary are the puncture marks (very few cases outside of the Colares region describe puncture marks) and the lack of nausea and diarrhea (which are quite common side effects of close encounters).

In response to the wave of serious encounters, the Brazillian military sent a 40-person team to the region. Supposedly the team managed to collect a significant amount of information, but little is known about their conclusions.

Many researchers in the past have noted the inordinate number of cases coming from "latin countries." With that in mind I broke down the cases by principal language spoken in the country of the sighting. Obviously the accuracy of this method is questionable, but not having access to a considerable amount of background data on the witnesses this is the best that could be done; it can probably be said that no matter what the ethnic background of the witness, he or she has probably been heavily influenced by the majority culture of his/her country.

Considering "latin" countries to be ones having Portuguese, Spanish, or Italian as the principal language, one sees an inordinate number of cases coming from such countries. Latin countries accounted for more than 39% of all injury and death cases, even though latin countries only account for 11% of the world's population. The English-speaking population however was also considerably overrepresented (47% of encounters but only 8% of world's population), but as explained earlier this is likely the result of the large number of investigators and the highly developed media in English speaking nations.

Injury and Death Cases by Principal Language (%)

Chart Depicting Breakdown by Language

To the best of my knowledge no large-scale study of the gender of UFO witnesses has been conducted. David Jacobs, an abduction researcher, however has found that "abductees" tend to be female. As far as regular UFO reports go, I have heard it said that a larger number of males have seen UFOs than females.

While I can't back up the above statements with numbers, the injury/healing database does have similar results. A rough breakdown the injury cases by gender shows that 71% of the cases involve males being harmed, as compared to only 29% female. This isn't too surprising as the injury cases include few abduction accounts. Whether regular UFO reports however tend to have that many more male witnesses, I don't know. The results of the healing cases on the other hand are much more equal. Males account for only 47% and females 53% for the healing cases. These cases are made up largely of abduction accounts so given David Jacobs findings, we would expect more females to be involved in these cases than in the injury cases.

  Chart Breakding Down Injury and Death Cases by Gender
Chart Breaking Down Healing Cases by Gender

While probably the most important section of this report, this was also the most difficult to create. This was the result of the wide variety of effects reported, as well as the often poor, third-hand evidence and descriptions that had to be relied on.

Most of the injuries and deaths in the database occurred as a direct result of the contact with the UFOs. Some injuries however were only indirectly caused by the encounter. For example, some witnesses hurt themselves while attempting to flee from a UFO. Many of the cases (though not all) involving broken bones, sprains, or cuts were the result of such indirect effects.

Most of the other injuries however were the direct result of the close encounter. Effects that were frequently reported included burns, conjunctivitis, headaches, nausea, rashes, swelling and numbness. Other effects widely reported but to a lesser extent included deafness, tinnitus, prickling sensations, loss of voice, hair loss, and diarrhea.

Type of Injury

While much is made of healing cases in the "contactee" and "experiencer" (as opposed to abductee) literature, there has apparently been very few documented cases. In fact, more than double the number of people have died or disappeared as a result of their encounter than have been healed. Furthermore, many of the documented healing cases are of poor quality and even dubious nature. There is of course also the question of whether or not alleged healings were the result of the encounter, the result of more terrestrial doctors, or even the result of spontaneous remissions and healings.

As with the injury cases, a larger number of cases than would be expected come from latin countries.

Healing Cases by Principal Language (%)

More Info on Healing Cases

Chart Breaking Down Healings by Language of Experiencer

Breaking the reports down by year shows several pronounced peaks. A casual examination of the data suggests there is no significant correlation between the number of injury/healing cases with overall UFO reports. There were larger than normal numbers of injury/healing cases for the years 1957, 1967, around 1977, and again in 1982. With the exception of the slight increase around 1992, there was a drop in cases from the early 1980s and onwards. It is unclear whether or not the actual number of injury cases has actually decreased in the past twenty years, or if they are simply not being distributed as they once were. More than likely the latter is true. This limited number of sightings in later years is probably the result of my sources. Most of my cases came from books, and most UFOlogy books that have been published since the 1980s were focused specifically on abductions rather than general UFO sightings. In other words, many UFO sightings are being ignored because researchers prefer to focus on the more sensational abduction accounts. As a result of this blinding, many cases were likely not published and therefore did not find their way into my database.

Chart Showing Number of Reports by Year For 1950-1997 

Month

 More Information on Reports by Month and Year

Chart Depicting Breakdown of Reports by Month

Chart Showing Numbers of Light Beam Cases

 Breaking the reports down by time of day gives results that are roughly consistent with both Canadian and European surveys of regular UFO reports. There is a pronounced peak around 9:00-10:00 pm and a secondary peak in the early morning. The number of cases during the afternoon are close to zero.

Chart Depicting Cases by Time of Day

Chart Comparing Injury/Healing Cases with General 1996 and 1997 Canadian UFO Reports

All of this discussion about injury begs the question of what is the cause of the injuries. Over the years numerous suggestions as to cause have been put forward. Many of these explanations account for some of the effects on witnesses, but so far nothing has been put forward that explains everything.

Ultraviolet rays was the first suspect. UV rays would explain the mild burns and conjunctivitis of the eyes. However many people suffered burns on parts of their bodies that were covered by clothing (which would stop UV rays)(Confrontations p.110). As an alternative, James McCampell suggested high-powered pulsed microwaves were to blame ("UFO Effects Upon People" UFOs 1947: 1987). Microwaves would explain many of the symptoms including" dizziness, headaches, and numbness (Confrontations, p.202). Some researchers have concluded that many of the injuries that occurred in the jungles of Brazil in the late 1970s were caused by high-powered pulsed microwaves (Confrontations, p.202).

Another candidate put forward was ozone. Ozone, as reported by Mark Cashman (Http://www.oocities.org/~mcashman/eyeskin.htm) can explain some of the eye irritation. Ozone is also a "byproduct of electrical discharge, and there is evidence of significant electromagnetic phenomena (atmospheric ionization, radio/television/ignition interference) in the vicinity of UFO." (Cashman) Furthermore, ozone has a smell like sulfur, a smell reported in numerous UFO encounters.

None of these explanations account for all of the effects. This of course isn't surprising as we would expect injuries caused by the craft's power source to be different from injuries caused by the so-called "beams of light" seemingly intentionally directed at some of the witnesses. Other injuries I am sure are caused by completely natural but unknown phenomena. While there will be widespread differences of opinion as to the cause of any particular case, there is agreement that there must be numerous different explanations for the phenomena as a whole.

From all of this comes the question of intent; do these 300 odd cases of harmful close encounters suggest the phenomenon is inherently dangerous to humans? Furthermore are these cases a sign of aggressiveness on the part of the phenomenon?

While this database indicates a potential for danger to humans, one cannot say that close encounters in general tend to be harmful to human witnesses. Over the last 50 or so years it has been estimated that the number of UFO sightings has been in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Clearly for most UFO witnesses, the only effect of the sighting is curiosity and/or fear.

One however should separate close encounter cases from the rest of the sightings. The overwhelming majority of the estimated number of UFO sightings were not close encounters, but of lights and objects seen from quite a distance. Under such circumstances, one would not expect the witness to be harmed from the sighting (assuming any injuries to witnesses were unintentional). A witness watching an object 20,000 feet in the air and more than 10 miles away would not likely feel the effects of the object's power source. Predictably, the majority of the cases in this study involved witnesses who were relatively close to the light/object. So is this evidence that having a close encounter with a UFO is often bad for your health? An estimated 50,000 close encounter cases have occurred over the past 50 years (Revelations, p.265). Assuming that the often quoted 10 to 1 rule (for every UFO sighting reported, ten cases aren't) applies to injury cases, this means then that approximately 3,000 close encounter cases involving injury or death to witnesses have occurred. While certainly not the majority, this number should make one pause before approaching a nearby UFO!

But just whose fault is it anyway? Are the injuries and deaths of witnesses an indication of hostility on the part of UFOs, or are the negative effects of the encounters entirely accidental, perhaps the fault of careless witnesses?

Since the early days of UFOlogy, many have speculated whether or not the UFOs being seen by the public were a threat. The large number of sightings in the summer of 1952, particularly the Washington D.C. wave, caused the American public to speculate on the intentions of the UFOs. There were so many reports at this time that the U.S. intelligence capabilities were overwhelmed. In response to this panic and the resulting information overload the CIA convened the "Robertson Panel." This panel of scientists was tasked with assessing the UFO situation. After a cursory examination the panel concluded that all UFO reports could be explained away as natural or man-made phenomena. While the UFO phenomenon itself did not pose a threat to the U.S. itself, the hysteria caused by it was a threat to the early-warning capabilities of the U.S. military. The UFO phenomenon could be used by America's enemies; a sort of Trojan horse for the Soviet nuclear arsenal. This indirect threat would have to be dealt with through the vocal debunking of UFO reports by the government (Clark, p. 514).

Not only the CIA but also the U.S.A.F. concluded that the UFO phenomenon posed no direct threat. After a lengthy study that was mired in controversy, Project Blue Book, the official UFO study at the time was shut down in 1969. The reason given was that the study could not "be justified either on the ground of national security or the interest of science." (Clark, p. 480)

Despite the opinion of the U.S. Government, over the years there have been numerous puzzling cases that do suggest some sort of hostile intent on the part of UFOs. In Brazil in particular, there has been dozens of documented cases of UFOs apparently intentionally hitting witnesses with beams of some sort of light. But what is puzzling is not so much the attacks themselves, but the apparent randomness of the attacks. Leonard Stringfield, in his book "UFO Seige", noted:

...(S)trangely (UFO hostility) leaves no widespread destruction

normally associated with a totally hostile attack. Here and there,

in a strange pattern of randomness, someone suffers injury or

discomfort and even inanimate objects are damaged with seeming

wantonness. This "warlike" behaviour-bizarre and inconsistent as

it is-stops short of open hostility. (Stringfield, p.151)

Not only are the attacks in general seemingly senseless, just as odd is the choice of weapon in many cases. Most of the cases that showed hostility involved the UFO targeting some sort of light beam against the witness. With a couple of exceptions, these beams don't appear to be the superweapons we would expect from an alien superpower. Death or total incapacitation beyond the impact of the beam is rare. Jacques Vallee asks in his book "Confrontations" why not use something more effective like a (relatively primitive) gun or missile?

Perhaps the UFO isn't really hostile towards us, or at the very least they mean us no long-term harm. Bob Pratt, while attempting to make some sense of the seemingly senseless and random attacks postulated that perhaps such frightful attacks were actually acting as some sort of diversion, taking our attention away from something much bigger and important.

Obviously aggressive and violent behaviour on the part of UFOs is relatively rare. Many researchers either have not heard of these cases, or they choose to ignore them. Most researchers prefer to instead to view injury cases as accidental. Witnesses are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the witnesses were too curious for their own good, approaching dangerously close to an unknown energy source. To paraphrase Dr. J. Allen Hynek, you don't blame the electric company if you die sticking your tongue in the light socket (Vallee, "Confrontations", p.205)

While overtly hostile aliens are hard to find in real life, Hollywood has been more than happy to make monsters from space the subject of many a movie. Films such as "The Thing", "Invaders From Mars," and more recently "Independence Day" and "The X-Files" have entertained audiences all over the world. Earlier movies were feeding off the fears of the Cold War. The later movies and television shows seem to be the result of increases in the distrust of government and fear of the unknown in the post Cold War world.

The famous psychologist Carl Gustav Jung suggested that these same fears that produced movies and television shows about alien invasions might be the source for the real UFOs themselves. The UFO, or more accurately the flying saucer, is a "mandala," an archetype of unity. In a world divided between East and West, a symbol related to unity was created by the collective unconscious. How such a symbol of peace and unity could come to be so hostile at times hasn't been explained by the theory's handful of supporters.

Another medium for the idea of violent aliens threatening the Earth is the print media. Attacking aliens has been a staple of the tabloid newspaper since the early days. Not to be outdone, many UFO related publications have willingly stretched the truth and in some cases told outright fabrications in an attempt to sell more of their publication. A good case in point was the razing of Chester, Illinois, back in July of 1977. The town of 5,000 was, according to "Official UFO", completely destroyed by alien spaceships. Easy enough to verify, reporters visited the war-torn town. Finding only a small but completely alive town, the media wrote articles poking fun at the story. For his part, the editor of the magazine Myron Fass insisted that "the aliens had returned, rebuilt the town, and given the townspeople selective amnesia." (Kurland, p.177).

Much like the phenomenon in general, there is no good understanding of whether or not UFOs pose a threat to us. We can't even seem to conclude whether the phenomenon is natural, psychological, representative of real alien visitation, or a combination of several of the above. The many contradictions in the physiological cases makes it difficult to come to any conclusions as to an explanation for the source of the injuries or the intent of the phenomenon. The limitations of the sources used in the study acted as a further hindrance. A more in-depth investigation into these cases should be put forward. Greater care must be made to analyze such physiological effects cases, not only so as to properly treat the experiencers, but because, as these cases provide us with evidence that can be studied, they offer the greatest clue as to the source and purpose of the phenomenon.

Clark, Jerome. The UFO Book. Toronto: Visible Ink, 1998.

Stringfield, Leonard. Situation Red: The UFO Siege. New York, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1977.

Vallee, Jacques. Revelations. Toronto, Ontario: Ballantine Books, 1991.

Cashman, Mark. Temporal Doorway webpage. Http://www.oocities.org/~mcashman/eyeskin.htm

Rinse, Jeff's Sightings webpage. Http://www.sightings.com/ufo/1Korea.htm

Rutkowski, Chris. "Too Close An Encounter: The Falcon Lake Case." Ftp://ftp.rutgers.edu/pub/ufo/rutkowski/falcon-lake

Schuessler, John. "UFO Related Human Physiological Effects." Society For Scientic Exploration web page: http://www.jse.com/ufo_reports/Schuessler/toc.html

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