In retrospect, I am glad that I did not reach out. My impression is that these people, if they exist, are more than a little afraid of us: They are deeply afraid. I suppose it was best to smile rather than move my hands toward them, but I wish that there had been touch. Could there have been, or would my fingers have crossed only air? I suppose that I will always wonder.

I asked for confirmation, not proof. It seems that they took me at the exact meaning of the word.

FIVE

I rage to know

what beings like me, stymied by death

and leached by wonder, hug those campfires

night allows,

aching to know the fate of us all,

wallflowers in a waltz of stars.

—DIANE ACKERMAN,
"Lady Faustus"

ALLIANCE OF THE LOST

Recollections of My Family

Trapped in the Dark

From the beginning, I had been disturbed that my wife and son might have been involved in this. At the least, they had suffered with me through my upheavals. At the worst, they were as entangled as I am. Our son has been preserved from almost all conversation about it and from direct experience of my personal trauma. Even before I knew exactly what was happening to me, my first concern was to leave his happy childhood intact.

When I realized that my memories fitted in with material described in Science and the UFOs, I did not cell Anne. I didn't tell anybody. As I have said, my initial impulse was to hide everything, and when I could not do that I sought professional help through Budd Hopkins. I told Anne nothing and our son less than nothing.

Thus when Anne was first hypnotized to aid her in recalling the nights of October 4 and December 26, she was aware only that something very unusual seemed to have happened on those dates. I did not keep it all from her out of some desire to preserve her the purity of hypnotic recall. I kept it from her because there was a possibility, however remote, that visitors had been around us in the night.

Thus the "visitor hypothesis" had been discussed by us only in general terms. Only after her first hypnosis, which took place on March 13, 1986, did I indicate that I felt there might have been some nonhuman presence involved in our lives. On the evening of March 15, she was treated to the spectacular 179 witness of the little girl at our country house. It is a testament to Anne's courage chat she remained there that night.

It is also true, though, that Anne has a very active mind, and she was far too curious to simply retreat. Once she understood that something might be happening, our familiar teamwork system began to function, and she took over the intellectual direction of our study, bringing to it her own creative and open mind, as well as her steadfast insistence that all speculation proceed from known facts.