Carol Rainey: Open Letter to the UFO Community

The following open letter was provided Sunday to The UFO Trail by Carol Rainey. Learn more about Ms. Rainey and her work by visiting her website, carolrainey.com, viewing her YouTube channel and watching her videos posted in the sidebar to the right.

Open Letter to the UFO Community

Over the past several years, I've posted to my YouTube channel (Carol Rainey) a dozen film excerpts on the subject of UFO abduction research. They feature the work of my then husband, Budd Hopkins, and his book, "Witnessed," about the Linda Cortile abduction case. People interested in this field might find something of worth in the comments posted recently by one of my critics, followed by my response to him.

[**Note: If I didn't think the UFO phenomenon was a real and significant human mystery, I assure you that I would never have "wasted" the past twenty years and my personal resources on caring about this research.]

I was particularly struck by the commentator's religious attitude toward the researcher and the material. It led me to wonder, not for the first time, how many researchers and observers in this field secretly harbor an attitude and a mindset that utterly mitigate against an ability to uncover what lies behind the UFO phenomenon.

Here is the essence of his remarks:

"...Do you consider yourself more of an expert on the subject of alien abduction than Bud Hopkins was?  You better be because you are going after a saint, and a lot of people will feel they have good reason to dismiss what you say out of hand."

Full quote below and my second response to the person:

tommytomted44 to Carol Rainey 20 hours ago

Thank you for your civil reply.  It just strikes me as strange.  You were married to Bud Hopkins.
You wrote books together, and now you are trying to take his work apart.

I understand this is new material, but this is not the first video you have made with this theme.  I believe I have seen them all.  To me there is just something very wrong with attacking the work of a dead man who is not here to speak for himself.

Without Bud Hopkins, David Jacobs and John Mack would never have been exposed to the subject of alien abduction.  Bud carried the water on the subject for years with no help at all.

It looks to me as if you have some problems with his methods.  It also looks to me like you are quite willing to toss the baby out with the bathwater.  That really bothers me.  It is hard enough to get people to take this subject seriously.

So you appear willing to throw out all Buds work.  Do you actually disagree with his take on every case he did?  Is there nothing of value to be saved here?  Nowhere we can say that Bud was doing good work?

Bud Hopkins and Karla Turner are the closest people we have to saints in the area of alien abduction.  So you don't agree with some of his methods.  Are you really willing to tear it all down over that? 

I'm not an expert on the history of the two of you together but didn't he do some of this work before you met and married him?  And didn't you write a book or two together?  I believe I've read those books and I don't remember you saying anything like this then.

Why now?  Were you just blind to these things when you were with Bud?  When you made that video did he know what you were intending to do with it?  If not then you were just setting him up a little bit there don't you think?

And lastly, do you consider yourself more of an expert on the subject of alien abduction than Bud Hopkins was?  You better be because you are going after a saint, and a lot of people will feel they have good reason to dismiss what you say out of hand.

I really don't like what you are doing.  I could hear you in the video.  It sure sounded to me like his partner in his work was setting him up, and he didn't even know it.  Now that is just disgusting.

With Bud dead, and no one to speak for him, this has the look and feel of a hatchet job.

cr response 2/23/14

I said all of these things, with documentation, _before_ Budd died, so that charge has little power. He and his devout supporters had their say, just as you're still having yours. 

You have some valid points, ones that I'll address in a longer form work - both in a documentary and in a book. Let me briefly say that your perspective and terminology suggest that you're in a religious frame of mind - one that won't help you be objective about good research methodology that will actually produce "knowledge." 

If you regard ANYONE in this field as "a saint," I think you've lost that ability. Budd (note the 2 D's) made significant contributions in offering support to people who felt traumatized and in making the media and popular culture aware of anomalous experiences related to UFOs. I am not suggesting otherwise. I was a participant in some cases with him that I think are quite credible and I will be showing those, too. But I AM strongly opposed to Budd's manipulation of facts and his telling the world that certain individuals's UFO reports were factual and credible when they were neither. 

Right now, I'm more interested in trying to ensure that there be no more Emma Woods out there - vulnerable people preyed upon by a "researcher" who has zero qualifications in psychology, hypnosis, medicine, cultural contagion, etc., and zero ability to handle the issues that arise. And now I'm speaking about someone who's quite alive.

Yes, I was Budd's partner and you can hear off-camera questions which indicate that I was always asking the hard questions. I supported what he was doing for many years, until the facts in front of me said that this was a deceptive and dangerous business. That's when my opinion changed and that's when I stopped being part of that community. The mark of a good investigator, scientists will tell you, is that he/she has the ability to change perceptions once the facts have changed or been more clearly perceived.