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it. period she and Thomas grew further apart and eventually divorced. The couple had no children, and to her knowledge, Sara has not been pregnant. Regarding her illness, Sara claims “It was for my own good, “an intervention that seems to have moved her onto her _ present Sara was an intellectually precocious child, and she was reading on her own at a very early age. She was especially drawn to mysteries and books about ghosts and poltergeists. The family went to church almost every Sunday. “I didn’t like the idea of original sin. It didn’t make any sense to me...I liked the Holy Spirit a lot.”” She described the Spirit as “like the connective tissue that binds all of reality together.”” By age eleven or twelve, Sara was considering theological questions such as a resolution to the dichotomy of good and evil, and she was drawn to reading about other religions. While Sara was an undergraduate, she participated in studies of extrasensory perception. Her interest in integrating the discoveries of physical science with explorations of spirituality and human consciousness have continued. On one occasion, she experienced _ electrical sensations in her body. On another occasion, “I felt like I got out of my body and I couldn’t get back in, and I was gone for about two days.” She was quite frightened by this experience. After graduating from college, Sara married Thomas. She became increasingly unfulfilled by the conventionality of their life together. He would “blow holes in everything I said I felt,” Sara said. She and Thomas remained married for several onto present spiritual path. About five months before she wrote to me, Sara met a young man named Miguel. When Sara and Miguel sat down to a meal at their second meeting, he immediately brought up the subject of UFOs and told Sara that he had seen a spaceship (this kind of synchronicity or serendipity is commonplace among abductees). Sara refers to Miguel as her “extraterrestrial friend.” Miguel reported seeing alien beings in his dreams, and Sara felt that he may even be a “represen- tative” of an alien species. He sometimes acted so listless that his behavior remind- ed Sara of the hybrid children abductees see on the ships. He was in an incubator as an infant and often showed “a huge on le a? ne On A neediness” according to Sara. At the same time, Sara valued the opportunity to discuss her encounter experiences with him. Sara’s abduction history is mixed with memories of various sorts of paranormal experiences. She has a very early memory—” six weeks old or less” —of “being picked up and moved and looked at.” She believes that ‘someone was taking a picture . . . It was like their first moment of self-consciousness,” she said. “I can shut my eyes and I recall it.” Experiences related to ghosts “were a permanent fixture of my whole child- hood,” beginning at least as early as age four, Sara recalled. I became a premier ghost story teller.” Sometimes she would build her stories around embellishments of portraits and tell “past life stories” based on imaginative recreations of their lives. She would concentrate on the eyes in the portraits and become “mesmer- ized.” The portrait would take on a “living vibrancy” and fill sorts years due to a strong love between them. In addition, Sara desired “some sort of ordered, comfortable” existence. About a year after she was married, Sara became very ill. Although there is no outward evidence to support this, Sara connects this illness and later intense pain in her neck and head to the otherworldly presence in her life (“They knocked me down,” she said). While out walking with Thomas one afternoon, her legs suddenly gave way and she collapsed. She devel- oped a fever almost immediately. Her condition was quite serious, and she was forced to go on disability from work. Her recovery was a long one, and during this 30