by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
It has been determined by many researchers in the scientific community that during hypnosis, false memories are very likely to be generated, and distinguishing them from real memories is difficult, if not impossible without some means of confirmation. This is, for instance, the conclusion of a report for the U.S. Department of Justice by Martin T. Orne et al. titled “Hypnotically Refreshed Testimony: Enhanced Memory or Tampering with Evidence?” published January 1985 in Issues and Practices in Criminal Justice. With the above in mind, it is helpful for researchers attempting to evaluate a case when a distinction can be made between elements of the report derived from conscious recall and elements derived through the use of hypnosis. A case where this can be easily done is that of Judy Kendell of Zamora, California, thanks to a newspaper article announcing her intention to undergo hypnosis to recover around four hours of missing time, and another article in a different paper after the procedure, which was, apparently, well attended.
According to the article (page 3 of the pdf) by Spencer Sias, headlined “Hypnotist Will Help Woman Find Four Hours Lost During Trip,” published in the January 26, 1977, Davis, California, Yolo County Shopping News, Kendell was scheduled to be hypnotised that Saturday to find “four hours that experts think may have been stolen from her by space creatures who abducted her in an unidentified flying object.” The term “frontloading” comes to mind, but the circumstances that led Kendell to contact Center for UFO Studies Director J. Allen Hynek looking for answers are described in detail.
According to Sias, Kendell drove her two sisters home to Zamora one “pitch black” night in 1970 after leaving their grandmother’s house in Bodega Bay at 5:30 p.m. Although the trip should have taken about three hours, they arrived in Zamora seven hours later at 12:30 a.m.
The youngest sister, 22, was reportedly asleep as Judy, 23, and her older sister, 25 (all ages are at the time of the article), found themselves driving much longer than expected as they looked for the turnoff for Zamora after crossing the Cache Creek bridge on Interstate 505. Sias says they agreed they should be getting there and then quotes Judy as saying, “Shortly after that we were back in front of the flashing yellow light in front of the bridge again.”
According to Sias, when they got home, their parents were angry and thought their story was “baloney.” Kendell said her father called her grandmother and confirmed they left at 5:30 and then checked a map to see if they had driven in a circle and concluded that wasn’t a plausible explanation. Kendell added that if they had driven for seven hours straight, they would have run out of gas.
With no explanation and everyone safe at home, the mystery is said to have been forgotten until 1975, when Judy and her older sister went to see Escape to Witch Mountain “featuring a Winnebago taking off into the sky” and “remembered the ride at the same time.” Sias says, “Curiously, whenever Judy talks about the experience, she refers to ‘setting down in front of the flashing light again’ as if they were floating in the air.”
According to Sias, Kendell saw a UFO that summer that she didn’t report, but it reminded her of her experience. She talked with some friends and one of them suggested that she write to Hynek. Although Hynek didn’t reply himself, his “fellow researcher,” Alvin H. Lawson, an English professor at California State University, contacted her and expressed an interest in her case.
Lawson is reported to have contacted researchers in Los Angeles who checked out Kendell’s credibility and she is said to have agreed to be hypnotized that coming Saturday “to see whether she remembers being aboard a space craft.”
Her hypnosis session is described in the article (page 1 of the pdf) headlined “Woman in Trance Tells of Space Ordeal” in the January 31, 1977, Davis, California, Enterprise. According to the reporter, Kendell underwent hypnosis “shivering on her warm living room couch” in front of a “roomful of calm UFO researchers and incredulous friends…” The article is written as if the reporter was present, so this seems to have been quite the public spectacle.
In this account, the events are said to have taken place “on a Sunday in November 1971 or 1972.” The rest of the brief account matches the one in the Shopping News.
According to the reporter, Kendell realized for the first time during the hypnosis “that she was kidnapped by a space ship.” She is described as shielding her face to avoid seeing “a space creature she described as having a bulbous head with saucer-sized red-pupiled gelatinous eyes.” She is reported to have said it had holes for ears, an almost translucent white face with a mask covering the lower part, red veins on its neck that were “not like the purple ones we have,” a human-like body, and hands “like ours” with five fingers.
Kendell reportedly said she was told by the creature in English, “it’s okay, it’s okay,” in a voice that “sounded like it was muffled and coming through a distant megaphone.” She is described saying “But it’s not okay” in “a small tight voice” and then grabbing her right side and leaning over “as if in pain.” According to the reporter, the hypnotist, Dr. D. W. McCall, asked her what was happening, and she replied that she felt like she got poked.
McCall is said to have taken her through her experience repeatedly, and the story is told that “she relaxed after being poked and was lying on a cold table with a sheet over her,” and in disgust, announced that she was being catheterized and having urine taken from her. She reportedly saw three creatures at the foot of the table and couldn’t describe their faces, and also saw a human woman with blue eyes and straight black hair “who handed the creature a tube of colorless fluid, ‘that you can’t see through.’” Kendell is said to have been mystified as to how the woman knew her name as she tried to reassure her.
Kendell is reported to have described the creatures looking at her feet throughout the experience, and to have said that they probed her ear with something cold and hard, and that one creature put a “heavy machine over her eyes” with what sounded like a “quiet motor whirring inside.” McCall is said to have asked, “Is it a brain reading machine?” to which Kendell replied, “I don’t know.”
According to the reporter, she described being in a round room circled with windows and seeing two bucket seats on one side with a “console with a lever like a car gear shift in the middle.” She is said to have pointed to her left and described seeing “a table with what looked like doctors’ ‘probes’ on it along with a black box that had “speaker holes in it.”
Kendell is quoted talking about her sister who, according to the reporter, wished to remain anonymous and wanted nothing to do with the hypnosis: “I can hear her calling my name. She is crying. She is really upset. She sounds far away. I hope she is alright.”
The next thing Kendell reportedly recalled was finding herself behind the wheel of her car without knowing how she got there. McCall is said to have “ran her through the experience again” whereupon she remembered being carried by three creatures dressed in grey who threw her into the car. She is quoted as saying, “They must have carried me because I couldn’t walk.”
According to the reporter, Kendall said her sisters seemed to suddenly materialize “and when they were in the car, it was pitch black.” Kendell, “in a disbelieving voice,” is quoted as saying, “We just landed on the road – in my car?!” and with “certain amazement,” adding, “In my car.”
Lawson is reported to have said that, in the reporter’s words, “Judy’s story could be as much an idiosyncrasy in human makeup as an abduction by space creatures.” The other researchers are described as being “in many ways as mysterious as the story itself,” and not saying “for certain how they felt about Judy’s story.” McCall is reported to have said that he had hypnotized “about” six others who had similar stories.