Dr. John Mack MD

[auntym]

www.ufoinsight.com/the-john-mack-alien-abduction-files-a-case-study/

The John Mack Alien Abduction Files – A Case Study

First Published: March 10, 2019 Last updated: October 5th, 2019
Written by: Marcus Lowth /





John Mack, M.D., a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one-time professor at Harvard University, is not only still regarded as one of the leading figures in alien abduction research almost two decades after his death in 2004 but is perhaps one of the first “academics” to publicly embrace, investigate, and report on his findings of such a bizarre and controversial subject.

Indeed, not only did he receive a biased response to his findings, but many people in academic circles would look to actively distance themselves from him, with some publicly asking for a review of his clinical care credentials. To say the reaction was hostile and unnecessary would be an understatement. With that in mind, while we will examine some of the critical responses to his work, we should perhaps keep a pinch of salt ready, although this time for the skeptical assertions rather than the bizarre.

Incidentally, the review into Mack’s credentials went ahead, performed by the Dean of Harvard. The conclusion was that Dr. Mack had “academic freedom to study what he wishes and to share his opinions without impediment!”

We have examined one of Mack’s cases before when, along with the fantastic and persistent work of fellow UFO researcher, Cynthia Hind, the UFO landing incident at Ariel School in Zimbabwe received a thorough investigation and exposure to the rest of the world. Had it not been for their efforts, that particular incident, one of the most credible on record, would very likely have been dismissed and forgotten.

While Mack researched many incidents, it was his work with alien abductees that contain some of his most extensive studies. Using hypnotic regression techniques, all of which are accepted methods of practice, he would reveal some intriguing information concerning the alien abduction phenomena.

CONTINUE READING: www.ufoinsight.com/the-john-mack-alien-abduction-files-a-case-study/


Check out the video below. It looks at some of the work and theories of John Mack a little further.

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arlhub.com/ufo-conspiracies-dr-john-macks-death-wasnt-one-of-them/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ufo-conspiracies-dr-john-macks-death-wasnt-one-of-them

UFO Conspiracies – Dr. John Mack’s Death Wasn’t One Of Them

October 8, 2020
by Dean Caporella / arlhub.com/


There are more than enough ufo conspiracies to keep us “entertained” for hours. Conspiracies are part and parcel of ufo studies. Since 1947, there have been plenty of them.

Every decade since Roswell has supplied its own group of conspiracies.

But how about suspicious deaths tied to the ufo field?


Leading researcher and investigative writer Peter Robbins recently sat down with me for a lengthy chat. We discussed ufo conspiracies, in particular suspicious deaths.

Several years ago, Robbins presented a riveting talk at a ufo conference on controversial deaths. These included researchers, investigators and journalists associated with the ufo field.

The interesting aspect is that this wasn’t a subject he was drawn to. And he very nearly passed on the presentation.


UFO Conspiracies Around Every Corner


It’s not hard to come up with a ufo conspiracy. You’ve just got to talk to a ufo believing crowd. Everyone has a theory or opinion on “what happened”.

Heck, I’m as guilty as anyone on this.

It’s one of the reasons so many folks are attracted to this topic.

One conspiracy which still has some traction was the death of Dr. John Edward Mack. He was struck and killed by a drunk driver in 2004 while in London walking home late at night.

Mack was an American psychiatrist. He was also a writer and the head of the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He was also a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Mack created somewhat of a firestorm among his peers when he investigated and spoke with alien abduction victims.

In fact, it forced Harvard to appoint a committee to investigate and review Mack’s work in this field.

After fourteen months, Mack was cleared of any ethics violations or professional misconduct. Harvard issued a statement reaffirming “Dr. Mack’s academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment”.

Someone with his credentials lending credence to the whole ufo thing was considered a coup for ufology.


It gave claims that ufos are real some legitimacy.

But Mack wasn’t a believer from the start. In fact, he admits this in his book Abduction. He says reports of people being taken by humanoid beings into spacecraft didn’t sit well with him. He thought they were suffering from some kind of delusion.

Robbins became friends with John Mack. He was introduced to him by famed ufologist Bud Hopkins.

Mack’s Death Was Not Suspicious

Robbins covered some very well known people in his presentation on suspicious deaths in the ufo field and left John Mack for last.

Of the eight people presented, Mack’s was the only one he couldn’t attach suspicion to.

“Sorry, it wasn’t foul play”.

“John’s family were very noble and very progressive in their thinking – his ex wife, girlfriend and grown up children tried to prevail on the judge overseeing this trial to not incarcerate the perpetrator”.

“Why? Because alcoholism granted, is a disease. And you know, it’s not that there was any malice involved but the judge, who unfortunately due to the way the laws are structured in the United Kingdom, was only able to give him several years and he got out early on good behavior”.

“I don’t know, I think he served less than two years”.

The Romance Of UFO Conspiracies

Robbins has no peer when it comes to investigating conspiracies within the ufo field.

His work on the mysterious death of America’s first Secretary of Defense James Forrestal has been widely acclaimed.

Robbins says there appears to be some sort of romance attached to conspiracies. This was very evident to him when investigating some of the controversial deaths within the ufo field.


“So that’s the gist of the paper and the series of investigations that I did. I think there is always going to be some sort of romance if you will, attached to it”.

“Part of the drama and the trappings of certain people in the ufo field is usually the louder they are about it, the least likely it is as a reality”.

“You know they might say, ‘I’m really putting my life at risk here by talking about it. The fact that I’m giving this information means I’m really courageous and I’m such an insider’.”

“I think most of it is BS, but it’s real”.

In the following excerpt from my interview with Robbins, we talk about John Mack, his trip to London and the lead up to his death.

In a future post, we’ll present other mysterious deaths considered ufo conspiracies investigated by Robbins.

He spent more than forty minutes during the interview almost replicating his famous presentation titled “Controversial Deaths and UFO Investigation: Murder, Conspiracy or Happenstance?”

[jcurio]

I would like to watch/listen to this video, but my sister is asleep on the couch beside me and I don’t want to wake her 😶.

Dr John Mack a “happenstance”. Yes, but very well orchestrated to appear as such.

I “warned” you guys, long ago, that “they” were getting better at THIS. I don’t want any prizes for warning... did anyone pay attention? 🤮

[auntym]

www.semcoop.com/blog/post/review-nick-pope-ralph-blumenthals-believer


Review: Nick Pope on Ralph Blumenthal's "The Believer"


March 11th, 2021

by Nick Pope /




John Mack was a Pulitzer Prize-winning psychiatrist who was challenged to look into claims of alien abduction, did so, and ended up believing the abductees. Did that make him credulous, or a visionary? Ralph Blumenthal's detailed, thoughtful and entertaining biography of Mack examines that question, and in doing so, probes the wider enigma of Mack himself. At risk of slipping into a psychiatric cliché, The Believer paints a picture of Mack as someone searching for answers to some of the biggest and most profound questions in life (not only extraterrestrial visitation, but also life after death), whilst simultaneously searching to fulfil some deep-seated need within himself.



A central contradiction of Mack's life was that as a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he was at the heart of the establishment, yet the causes he championed and the subjects he probed made him a rebel. Mack's conflict with Harvard authorities critical of his methodology with abductees forms the narrative heart of the book. While his critics were careful not to imply limits to his academic freedom, Blumenthal's book suggests that institutional skepticism about UFOs and abductions was a factor, as all parties grappled with a subject that raised difficult questions about evidence, proof and reality.



Mack's untimely death in 2004 - after being knocked down by an intoxicated driver in a London suburb - sparked conspiracy theories within the UFO community and robbed them of a champion who'd given tabloid tales of alien abduction a veneer of respectability. It's ironic that as this book is published, another Harvard professor, Avi Loeb, is pushing boundaries with his claims of extraterrestrial visitation, following the lonely path that Mack trod decades before. The Believer is filled with interesting information and anecdotes about Mack's life, travels, activism, scholarship and investigations, as well as his complicated family life.



Ralph Blumenthal is a sympathetic biographer and, perhaps, a kindred spirit. The veteran New York Times reporter was one of three journalists who broke the linked stories of the Pentagon's AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) research effort and the existence of films of UFOs taken by US Navy jets. Blumenthal's scoop helped transition the UFO topic from fringe to mainstream. John Mack would doubtless have approved.



Nick Pope investigated UFOs for the UK Ministry of Defence. He is the author of several books, including Encounter in Rendlesham Forest.


www.semcoop.com/blog/post/review-nick-pope-ralph-blumenthals-believer

[auntym]

www.mysterywire.com/ufo/ralph-blumenthal-john-mack/

Harvard psychiatrist brought credibility to alien abduction research

by: George Knapp www.mysterywire.com/author/george-knapp/

by Duncan Phenix / www.mysterywire.com/author/duncan-phenix/

Posted: Mar 9, 2021


MYSTERY WIRE — Stories about alleged alien abductions have been a staple of modern culture for decades, but were generally disregarded by science until the 1990’s. That’s when prominent Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack began his own investigation, one that ended in a fight for academic freedom.

A NEW CHAPTER

In 1961, a married couple named Betty and Barney Hill told an astonishing story about being kidnapped and taken aboard a spacecraft. In the years that followed, thousands of other cases surfaced, inspiring best- selling books and popular movies.

What was missing from the narrative was serious scientific attention.



This April 1994 file photograph shows Dr. John Mack of the Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Mass. According to his institute’s website, Mack was killed in London after being struck by a car while walking. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)


That changed when Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Mack, a brilliant and successful academic who’d won a Pulitzer Prize, launched his own investigation, met and interviewed hundreds of so called experiencers, and came to the conclusion that their stories were true.

A new book about Dr. Mack’s work called “The Believer” has been written by veteran New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal.

“‘There was evidence,’ Mack said. ‘There was fragmentary evidence.’ Some people had scars on their body they couldn’t explain,” Blumenthal told Mystery Wire in a new interview. “It was a quadriplegic who had scars on his body. He couldn’t have done it to himself, he couldn’t move. And there were areas where UFOs were reported to have been seen and landed, where the ground may you know showed up with different kinds of measurements afterwards, different effects were detected afterwards, grass wouldn’t grow with certain patterns.“

Dr. Mack concluded the experiencers did not have mental illness and were not making it up. “He (Dr. Mack) said, I’m a psychiatrist, so my specialty is the human psyche, and the human mind. So I can tell you certain things. These people are not crazy,” Blumenthal said retelling Dr. Mack’s defense of his research. “They’re not mentally ill, because he’s interviewed so many. He said that’s what I do for a living so I know this. These people are not making it up. They’re not fabricating it. It’s not a hoax.”

His defense of abductees led to a massive legal battle with Harvard, which went to the heart of academic freedom.

Below you can watch and read the entire interview between George Knapp and Ralph Blumenthal about Dr. John Mack’s fight to legitimize close encounters.


George Knapp
Ralph Blumenthal, great to see you, “The Believer.” Terrific book. You say it’s already doing well and it hasn’t officially been out yet.

Ralph Blumenthal
Yeah, it’s flying off the shelves, the metaphorical shelves anyway. Pub. date is March 15. But Amazon’s already put it on sale, some of the other bookstores, so it’s going great guns.

George Knapp
You know, a lot of people in the UFO world today don’t really know the name Dr. John Mack anymore. Can you give us sort of the broad strokes of who he was, his professional stature, and why his entry into this weird arena was so important?

Ralph Blumenthal
Well, good you say that because I didn’t know about John Mack when I first stumbled across him by picking up one of his books in 2004. But in his time, which was the 90s, basically 1990s he was a household word. He was on Oprah, he met with the Dalai Lama. He met with Yasser Arafat on peace missions to the Middle East. He was everywhere. And mainly, he was in the news because of his research into alien abduction. He was a Harvard psychiatrist and is very esteemed in his field. He had won a Pulitzer Prize with a biography of Lawrence of Arabia of all things. And that’s interesting, because he had all these enthusiasms and he got into it, he saw Lawrence of Arabia and saw the movie like everybody else. And he said, I got to find out about this guy. And he ended up doing a, you know, a 10 year research project, meeting with Lawrence’s family, getting his papers, so he won a Pulitzer prize, so he was known for that. And then, with a series of interesting chance encounters, he got interested in the idea of alien abduction, but it was not his field to begin with. He was a psychiatrist, very conventional one. But by the time he was done with his two bestsellers, and his TV appearances, he was a household word.

George Knapp
Harvard psychiatrist from a fairly wealthy family, Pulitzer Prize, incredible stature in his field. And yet, he goes ahead and tackles this weird subject of alien abductions. Your book, “The Believer” is a detailed portrait of Dr. Mack warts and all. And it’s the warts that are so essential to the road that he took in tackling that strange topic of alien abductions. Right?

Ralph Blumenthal
Right. I mean, he was a human being, you know, like all of us. And as I say, actually, in the end of the book, when you talk about, you know, the best of our species, our human species, he would represent that, because he was curious, he was courageous, he went against the grain, he crossed boundaries that other people were afraid to cross. So yeah, he had his foibles. I mean, he liked women a little too much for a married man. He experimented with drugs, he was very interested in ayahuasca and LSD. He was very naive, actually, when he dealt with the media, you know, you and I know never confide in a reporter. Keep reporters at arm’s length saying exactly what you want to say. But Mack would say things like, well, do you think we should put this in a you think I should talk about, you know, what he was talking about his private life, his interest in you know, all kinds of strange things that you wouldn’t necessarily want to report it to know about. And yet he would let it all hang out. And he tried to make everybody his friend, which was also a problem.


CONTINUE READING: www.mysterywire.com/ufo/ralph-blumenthal-john-mack/

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Ralph Blumenthal Challenges the Idea that Alien Abductions are Lucid Dreaming





Ralph Blumenthal Challenges the Idea that Alien Abductions are Lucid Dreaming

New York Times journalist Ralph Blumenthal joins Chrissy Newton to discuss past Psychology research around 'alien abductions" in comparison with recent lucid dreaming studies and the work of Harvard Psychologist John E. Mack.

Cultures from around the world have been describing extraterrestrial encounters and abductions for years but the science community has labelled these experiences as sleep paralysis or Lucid dreaming.

John Edward Mack, an American Psychiatrist, writer, professor and former head of the department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, believed there was something else going on.

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The Man Who Says He Was Abducted by Aliens

The Oprah Winfrey Show | Oprah Winfrey Network
Aug 18, 2019


In this clip from a 1994 episode of "The Oprah Show", guest Peter Faust claims he was visited—and ultimately abducted—by aliens at the age of 8. As an adult, Peter says he’s had terrifying recollections of the abduction, which left him so unsettled he ultimately sought the help of a psychiatrist. Here, John Mack, MD, joins Peter on stage to give credence to his patient’s abduction story, and those of thousands of other people claiming similar experiences.

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1998 Doc: 'Contact' BBC, featuring Dr. John Mack.

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John Mack: Human Encounters with Aliens (excerpt) -- A Thinking Allowed DVD w/ Jeffrey Mishlove

ThinkingAllowedTV

Aug 28, 2010





NOTE: This is an excerpt from the two-part, 60-minute DVD.
www.thinkingallowed.com/2jmack...

Psychiatrist John Mack discusses clinical case histories involving memories of alien encounters. He suggests that these cases transcend dualistic categories, such as reality/fantasy, physical/mental, true/false. He argues that UFO abductions differ from past-life memories, near-death experiences and satanic ritual abuse because of the presence of corroborating physical evidence.

John Mack, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Harvard, received a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of T. E. Lawrence and is author of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.


*******************************************************************





The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack



May 5, 2022

The Believer

Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack

A Conversation with Ralph Blumenthal

he Believer is the weird and chilling true story of Dr. John Mack. This eminent Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer risked his career to investigate the phenomenon of human encounters with aliens and to give credibility to the stupefying tales shared by people who were utterly convinced they had happened.

Nothing in Mack’s four decades of psychiatry had prepared him for the otherworldly accounts of a cross section of humanity including young children who reported being taken against their wills by alien beings. Over the course of his career his interest in alien abduction grew from curiosity to wonder, ultimately developing into a limitless, unwavering passion.

Based on exclusive access to Mack’s archives, journals, and psychiatric notes and interviews with his family and closest associates, The Believer reveals the life and work of a man who explored the deepest of scientific conundrums and further leads us to the hidden dimensions and alternate realities that captivated Mack until the end of his life.



Ralph Blumenthal was an award-winning reporter for the New York Times. He coauthored the Times article in 2017 that broke the news of a secret Pentagon unit investigating UFOs, and he is the author of four nonfiction books including Miracle at Sing Sing: How One Man Transformed the Lives of America’s Most Dangerous Prisoners. A distinguished lecturer at Baruch College, he lives in New York City.

[auntym]

JOHN MACK & ALIEN ENCOUNTERS

i've posted this video before and its worth a second look



NOTE: This is an excerpt from the two-part, 60-minute DVD.
www.thinkingallowed.com/2jmack.html


Psychiatrist John Mack discusses clinical case histories involving memories of alien encounters. He suggests that these cases transcend dualistic categories, such as reality/fantasy, physical/mental, true/false. He argues that UFO abductions differ from past-life memories, near-death experiences and satanic ritual abuse because of the presence of corroborating physical evidence.

John Mack, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Harvard, received a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of T. E. Lawrence and is author of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens.