When we have contemplated sending a message into space, we have thought to send some core symbol — a prime number, perhaps, or the value of pi. The transmission of an isosceles triangle would not be an invalid choice.

On the night of April 13, 1986, eleven of us met at the home of Budd Hopkins. We were selected simply on the basis of the fact that we live in the New York area and could come.

During the colloquy I persistently asked that specific experiences be recounted, but did not have too much success. To many of these people, the details of what happened are an extremely private matter. And given the shrillness of the debunkers eager to accuse them of everything from charlatanism to insanity, and elements of the press so eager to scoff, I could not really blame them.

The purpose of the colloquy was not primarily to discuss the details of being taken, but rather the experience of coping with it, of trying to live a normal life without knowing for certain what is real, of facing the risk of personal and public ridicule, of finding one's way in a world that has suddenly become very strange indeed.

Needless to say, none of these people would allow his or her name to be used. The only real names in the colloquy are thus my own and that of Budd Hopkins.

This is our hidden choir:

Mary, cosmetologist, age 29

Jenny, dancer, age 22

Mark, museum curator and artist, age 55

Sally, business executive, age 36

Joan, beautician, age 23

Sam, scientist, age 39

Fred, musician, age 34

Pat, housewife, age 35

Amy, Pat's mother, age 56

Betty, executive, age 43

Whitley, writer, age 40

This is our colloquy.

Whitley: "Budd, I'd like it if you could begin. Even though you aren't one, you're still one of us."

Budd: "I'll tell you what I think would be the most interesting thing — rather than tell their experience, why not focus on the idea of how everybody feels about their experience?"

Whitley: "But say what happened to you so that there'll be some perspective in people's minds when they read it."

Budd: "The most valuable thing, really, is for everybody to say how you handle this, how you fit it into the rest of your life if you do, and how seriously you take it, and how important it seems to be to you and so forth. That's very crucial."

Joan: "Sometimes I have a problem feeling the importance of what's going on now, as far as things that take place in the world and jobwise, and the whole attraction of life itself, because I start thinking that this is so mediocre compared to what's out there. What we're doing — people put so much attention and so much pressure on whatever they're doing in their lives, sometimes it gets to seem like we're such jerks, and I say to myself, 'it doesn't mean anything.' There's something that's gonna happen soon, and this doesn't mean anything, what we're doing. And they're trying to tell us something, but nobody's listening."