SUBJECT: ATTEMPTED MURDER vs. THE POLITICS OF UFOLOGY FILE: UFO3341 Attempted Murder vs. The Politics of Ufology: A Question of Priorities in the Linda Napolitano Case by George P. Hansen ----------------------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT: UFO abductee Linda Napolitano claims that she was kidnapped, assaulted, battered, harassed, and nearly drowned by two agents of the U.S. government. Prominent ufologists Budd Hopkins, John E. Mack, David M. Jacobs, Jerome Clark and Walter H. Andrus, Jr. accept these claims. Hopkins has collected extensive materials that could be used to help apprehend and convict the agents. Yet Hopkins, Clark and Andrus have vigorously argued that these crimes should not be reported to law enforcement authorities; they indicate that such could be "politically damaging" to UFO research. These ufologists are asked to defend their decision and priorities. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Budd Hopkins' case involving the abduction of Linda Napolitano by a UFO has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal (May 14, 1992, pp. A1, A10), Omni (April 1992, p. 75), Paris Match (17 ept. 92, pp. 13-14, 18, 96, 98), and the New York Times (October 5, 1992, pp. B1, B2). The Mufon UFO Journal labeled it "The Abduction Case of the Century" (August 1992, p. 9). By virtue of this intense interest, it will become an exemplar for the study of UFO abductions. Briefly, it is asserted that at about 3:15 a.m. on November 30, 1989, Linda Napolitano floated out of her 12th floor apartment in lower Manhattan. Allegedly three witnesses in a car about two blocks away observed Linda and three humanoid figures emerge from a window and ascend into a craft hovering over her building. Two of the witnesses, Richard and Dan, were government security officers who were guarding the third witness, a dignitary. More than a year after the case, Richard and Dan wrote to Hopkins describing what they saw, and a few weeks later they visited Linda in her apartment. Hopkins has never met these two but has over 80 pages of letters from them, and he has accumulated much other material pertinent to the case. The affair is quite complex, and the story is now only beginning to be told. Hopkins presented a few details at the 1992 MUFON convention in Albuquerque and then in the September 1992 issue of the Mufon UFO Journal. One of the most disturbing elements of the case is that felonies were allegedly committed by the government agents; these include assault, battery, kidnapping and attempted murder. Hopkins' published account of this aspect is so sketchy that some might consider it deliberately misleading. His entire written summary is only one sentence long: "In April and again in October 1991, Linda would suffer hours- long forced confinements and interrogations at the hands of these confused frightened `law-enforcement' officers; she would be struck by a car during a chase through the streets of lower Manhattan" (Mufon UFO Journal, September 1992, pp. 13, 14). Hopkins' brief statement hardly conveys the gravity of the situation. It suggests that he may have taken these matters much too lightly. The kidnappings and attempted murder On January 28, 1992, Linda Napolitano contacted Richard Butler and requested a meeting because she was concerned about her personal safety, and she was worried that Hopkins might not be able to adequately protect her. Linda had earlier become friends with Butler at meetings in the home of Budd Hopkins. On February 1, 1992, Linda met with Butler along with Joseph Stefula, a former Special Agent with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command who has extensive contacts in law enforcement. During the meeting, Linda stated that in April 1991 she encountered security agent Richard on the street near her apartment. She was asked to get into a car that Dan was driving, but she refused. Richard then picked her up and, with some struggle, forced her into the automobile. Linda reported that she was driven around for 3 1/2 hours and interrogated about the aliens. At the MUFON symposium in July 1992, Linda was asked if she had reported the kidnapping to the police. She said that she had not and went on to say that the kidnapping was legal because it had to do with national security; she later commented that she did not want to go head to head with a government agency because she might be killed and pieces of her might be found in the East River (Hopkins did not dispute these statements). Linda did remember another car being involved with the kidnapping, and under hypnotic regression she recalled the license plate number of that automobile, as well as part of the number of the car she was in. Hopkins reports that the numbers have been traced to particular agencies. During the February 1 meeting with Stefula and Butler, Linda reported that on the morning of October 15, 1991, Dan pulled her into a red Jaguar sports car. Linda happened to be carrying a tape recorder and was able to surreptitiously record a small part of Dan's questioning, but within a few minutes he discovered and confiscated it. Dan drove to a beach house on the shore of Long Island. There he demanded that Linda remove her clothes and put on a white nightgown, similar to the one she wore the night of the UFO abduction. He said he wanted to have sex with her. She refused but then agreed to put on the nightgown over her clothes. Once she did, Dan droppped to his knees and started to talk incoherently about her being the "Lady of the Sands." She fled the beach house, but Dan caught her on the beach and bent her arm behind her. He placed two fingers on the back of her neck, leading Linda to believe that it was a gun. He then forced her into the water and pushed her head under twice. He continued to rave incoherently, and as her head was being pushed under for the third time, she believed that she would not come up again. Then, a "force" hit Dan and knocked him back onto the beach. Linda started to run but heard a sound like a gun being cocked. She looked back and saw Dan taking a picture of her (the pictures were eventually sent to Hopkins). She continued to move, but Richard came running, seemingly out of nowhere. He stopped her and convinced her to return to the beach house, and he told her that he would control Dan by giving him a Mickey Finn. She agreed to the plan. Once inside, Richard put Dan in the shower to wash off the mud from the beach. This gave Linda a chance to search the premises; she recovered her cassette tape and discovered stationery bearing a Central Intelligence Agency letterhead. In a brief conversation on October 3, 1992, Hopkins told me that Linda came to him shortly after she arrived back in Manhattan after the kidnapping. She was disheveled, had sand in her hair, and was traumatized by the experience. Linda also reported to Stefula and Butler that on December 15 and December 16, 1991, one of the men had tried to make contact with her near the shopping area of the South Street Seaport. He was driving a large black Fleetwood sedan with Saudi Arabian United Nations license plates. To avoid him, Linda said that she went into a shop during the first incident. The second day a similar thing happened, and she stood next to some businessmen until he left the area. Evidence accumulated by Hopkins Hopkins reports accumulating much information about the identities of Richard and Dan, and this could be extremely helpful in a criminal investigation. He has approximately 80 pages of letters from the two men. These might potentially be used to identify typewriters on which they were produced. They may also contain fingerprints. Hopkins has tape recordings of Richard and Dan; perhaps these could be used to help identify them by voiceprints. Hopkins claims to know which government agency employs the two. He says that he knows the identity of the dignitary they were guarding, and this person should be in a position to help locate and identify Richard and Dan. (Linda told Stefula and Butler that the dignitary was Javier Perez de Cuellar, then Secretary General of the United Nations.) The counsel of ufology's leaders The reader may be tempted to dismiss Linda's account as a preposterous script for a grade B movie, and I personally do not believe her claims. However, several notable figures in ufology have expressed the conviction that Linda is telling the truth. On October 6, 1992, I spoke with Dr. John Mack, former head of the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, and he confirmed that he had met Linda and concluded that she was not the type of person to make up this kind of story. That same day I also spoke with David Jacobs, a professor of history at Temple University, an abduction research colleague of Budd Hopkins, and author of the book Secret Life. He too believed that Linda was telling the truth. Hopkins presented additional secret evidence to Walter Andrus and Jerome Clark who are now both persuaded of Linda's honesty. Andrus and Clark are arguably the two most influential figures in U.S. ufology. Andrus is International Director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), and he organizes the largest annual conference on UFOs in the country and regularly writes for MUFON's monthly magazine. Clark is a columnist for Fate magazine, editor of International UFO Reporter, and a vice-president of the Center for UFO Studies. At a meeting in New York City on October 3, 1992, Linda said that she is willing to testify against Richard and Dan (though she had previously indicated that she was afraid of filing charges herself). I informed those at the meeting that I was prepared to make a formal request for a federal investigation of the attempted murder of Linda. Hopkins, Andrus, and Clark all vigorously objected to this, and they strongly urged me not to do so. They said that such action would be "politically damaging" to ufology. I was extremely puzzled by their reasoning and their apparent priorities. On October 5, 1992, two days later, I called Andrus to make certain that I understood his position. I asked him to join with me and request a formal investigation of these allegations by the proper law enforcement agencies. I explained to him that UFO researchers were generally not qualified to investigate attempted murder. I was taken aback when Andrus asked me what right I had to raise these issues. He again urged that the crimes not be reported. The following day I spoke with Clark. He told me that he accepted Linda's statements, and he reaffirmed his opposition to reporting the crimes. I have not been given a satisfactory explanation for their views. At risk is not only the safety of Linda but also that of the general public. If federal agents have engaged in kidnapping and attempted murder, they should be brought to justice. The matter is of great concern for the general citizenry and for the conduct of UFO abduction research. I call upon Clark, Andrus, and Hopkins to publicly explain their rationale and priorities. --------------------------------------------- 20 October 1992 To: Michael Corbin Message #: 3507 3398 >> THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo <<<------- * *********************************************************************