Question:

My family and friends think I am either crazy or making this stuff up. Why doesn't anybody believe me about alien abductions?

Answer:

They do. In their own way. Belief is a strange act of trust. People hear what you say, understand your words, but may turn a deaf ear if they don't really trust your words.

Judge for yourself: in the recent movie CONTACT, Jodie Foster plays a scientist optimistic of extraterrestrial life. She's felt it since birth. To her it's concrete, tangible, and real. Her life goal is proving her instincts about the galaxies. But she has no patience for abstract, unscientific things such as religion--she is an atheist. Her romantic interest, a theologian, calls her on the carpet for her nonbelief: "How you can have faith in the cosmos but not in religion?"

As Foster discovers, her fantastic voyage and alien encounter is doubted. Scientists say she couldn't possibly travel distances when her capsule misfired and dropped within seconds into the sea. So, Foster has only her word against millions of disbelievers; and disbelievers who use science--a video showing her aborted mission-- as proof of her paranoia. Foster remains firm, clutching onto "FAITH" as her validation.

The movie CONTACT sends a clear message to alien abductees or people wondering whether they were victims of alien contact. The message is this: your only proof is your memory and faith. What you remember and what you believe are yours. Skeptics may doubt you or even ridicule your fantastic stories of alien surgeries, pregnancies, or learning of interplanetary secrets. Friends, family, even health professionals may dismiss your sincerity and pigeon-hole you in a mental illness category.

Ninety percent of all people believe in God. And proof of God's existence is still unclear. So, as long as faith occurs in one form, it can occur in other forms. People worldwide need faith. Whether religious or extraterrestrial, faith is the drive that lets us have hopes, goals, and to trust life can be better.

When you share your stories of alien abduction, realize you are asking people to have faith in you just as they have faith in God or in their future. Tell them your experience is a test of your own faith. But whether they believe you or not, remember who it is that ultimately validates your world--not others, only you.

Trauma in any form is your own experience. Don't feel another person must confirm or verify your experience to feel what you encountered was true. You may not know why you experienced it; you may not have all the answers to your questions. Nobody does. But don't despair. Faith and trust begins with one person. One person must truly unconditionally accept a feeling or experience in spite of how odd that feeling or experience is. It must be accepted in spite of doubters, disbelievers or even critics. And that one person who you can count on to reaffirm your story and console your unsettled emotions is yourself.

Start with you. Believe in you, first, and then worry about recruiting others to your beliefs.

Yes, like the Witch-Hunts years ago in Salem, Massachusetts, you're declared unhealthy, insane, paranoid, and regarded as a danger or threat to mankind. Not because you really are a danger, but because your insights and experience do not fit into the neat Norman Rockwell picture of family life. Your bizarre tale sounds supernatural, not natural. Your complaints of implants and body conversions sound satanic, not Christian. So, be prepared--people can't understand you because they don't have a vocabulary or mind-set to understand you.

Nobody believed in airplanes--but now they do.

Nobody believed "Man" would set foot on the moon--but he did.

Sure, you think your knowledge is obvious; you believe it is compelling, genuine, and foretelling of future life. But you can't impress others to appreciate your experiences unless they know how to believe.