Emma's Travail
by Alfred Lehmberg
Astonishing! As if they were the victims of an insistently coercive telepath or something, people this writer would otherwise respect still want to give Dr. David Jacobs, that noted alien abduction "expert," outre alien "officiate," and "ET doom" author, an entitled "pass" regarding his well-demonstrated transgressions and gross unprofessionalisms... but THEN rather baselessly treat his psychologically assaulted former client, Ms. “Emma Woods,” as an obsessive nut-ball or shrill psycho-harridan, an especially nasty one, mind you, touted by her "critics" as drearily grasping for a little pathetic, if unearned, public attention... and working with a psychotic fervency only to smear the "good Doctor’s" name, and by extension? The memory of an even more revered (if late) Budd Hopkins.
Pfft!
These are "lenses" of needs more focusable and in want of a busy cleaning, even. The late Jeff Ritzmann would have stridently spit in offending eyes and charged for the wash, and did! See, "blaming the victim" is de rigueur behavior for the du jour critics of Ms. Woods... This is rejected—rejected out of hand. "Me, too" will have legs of needs and with cause for this writer. He gets it.
Also? This will not be forgetting the well-deserved torpedo of brilliant light that the seeming toxic false-narrative of Alien Abduction decidedly took, below its now post-geriatric waterline, as fallout in the horrific affair... An unplanned but necessary result as the crow flies? This writer suspects so.
Jeremy Vaeni, a conduit for the initial exposure of this affair along with the aforementioned Ritzmann, and alerting this writer to it at the start, once described the sinking of that mal-spirited "abduction-ism" alluded to above as a happy result of the revelation. Everyone DID tread more lightly after the Woods affair...
Verily, the field was headed to unconstructive, even destructive territory... if the subject of this essay is any measure! No, where there is no honest oversight, sensible regulation, and presumed responsibility? Corruption is begged... indeed, isn't it assured?!
Corruption was indelibly recorded in this venue otherwise sanely regarded, at pains, a venue of interest to countless persons all over the planet—like heaven would be for the adherents of Abraham embroiled in their deceptions, eh? Remains, and like that alleged reward manipulatively intimated for a life well-lived: "if heaven can fall, it probably should"!
To continue, this writer was one of those whom he "would have otherwise respected." How would that work, one might ask!
Frankly, this writer once adored these two men. He held them in the highest of high esteems. Subsequently, that same writer aforementioned has been disabused of those respectful notions over the attendant ardent decades, plainly for some cause as it is perceived, sans any relevant (or suspected?) "dogs" in the hunt? One must use one's imagination. No dogs like that.
No, reader. The writer was just... embarrassed... personally, if not mortally, and again concerning his misplaced if sincere ufological faith. More on "dogs," later.
Firstly? This writer has listened to the evidence... hours and hours of it! The anxious and incompetent smarm displayed is as obvious as it is unconscionable. Any defenses of it: as unconscionable as they are vacuous! The well-intentioned and very strong regard one had for Dr. Jacobs becomes a baking-soda statue in an especially righteous acid rain.
Secondly, the problems, the writer's "problems" (if biggies and deal breakers...) with the late Mr. Hopkins (and his acolytes) concerns rank and unjustified pride of purpose, philosophical irrelevance based on homocentric fear of ego death (one presumes), and a narcissistic "mal-religious" hubris (in this writer's citable opinion and popular these days) pushed by these two for cash and notoriety. Evil defined.
Observed was that especially anxious Pope-like authoritarianism of despots and peanut gallery—that inexplicably steadfast and unwavering support of David Jacobs given the evidence… ...then the hypocrisy, reader, where Jacobs is found to be so profoundly, so demonstrably dirty, you know?
Was there any cogent defense beyond "fake news"! "Witch hunt"! The ever-popular "She's crazy"... addressing the stark evidence presented? No.
One offers, also, that not much is lost vis a vis Hopkins ufological "legacy," such as it is, given Hopkins "more notorious cases," Linda Cortile, and finally Jim Mortellaro; some very likely wild blue horse muffins, muffins thoroughly discredited, credibly, by comparatively sensible researchers of the outre, George Hansen, Raymond Fowler, and Carol Rainy et sig al. These are persons ok with discovering zebras (or unicorns!) where horses were rather pompously proclaimed by a non-investigating and so incredulous science!
These were not reflex, reactionary, and so "spring-butt," skeptibunkies, the reader will note, but noted shoulders upon which the sentient might stand regarding the highly strange shiznit they've addressed or regarded sensibly and with such selfless sincerity! Posted!
Indubitably, these are quality observers, intrepid documentarians, and adroit writers/researchers! These are not folks associated with CSI(cop) in other words, so not inexorably hardwired to the ephemerally errant and reflexive "prosaic/mundane," mechanisms used as a "reality tunnel" regarding the strange shiznit alluded to and dealt with here!
No, These are named persons of good reputation reasonably open to finding those aforementioned zebras... only, these but shoot massive holes in the narrative and veracity of Hopkins' “Biggest” cases! The rest? Perhaps an abuse, misinterpretation, and a self-serving distortion of real events? Clearly, something extraordinary and highly strange happened to Debbie Jordan-Kauble. It is unfortunate that Dr. John Mack was not around to take that case...
In the second case above, "Mortellaro"? This writer was very near the supportive center of that lurid affair. One can report that it turned out to be a real steaming pile of festering yak heave, personally, but we digress.
Burned and shy, one is provoked to an attitude of eyes askance and arms akimbo concerning all the rest. The late Dr. John Mack, from above, an esteemed Harvard psychiatrist who had a more constructive and less homocentric or hubristic take on the phenomenon, "survives" in literature to provoke valid interest on the phenomenon, still... an interest not crippled by hubris and human arrogance.
All the preceding remains an unsettling eye-opener …and cold winds blow through dreaded halls ill-lit by those flickering exit signs in the dead of our unsettling paranormal night… verily! See, it remains that history would show Hopkins’ “biggest cases” are entirely bupkis, and David Jacobs stands revealed as a self-admitted monster (admitted stealthily to George Knapp on Coast 2 Coast one dark and stormy night) as was pointed out previously. Moreover, this writer has been speaking or corresponding with "Emma Woods" for many years, now, over a decade. ...An uncanted, entirely honest, and circumspect assessment?
In addition to being organized, objective, constructive, and comprehensive, she is also efficaciously flexible, wholly acceptable, very specific, and entirely thoughtful. She strikes one as a remarkably sane, inordinately strong, and very intelligent woman who won’t suffer a psychopath’s scurvy foot on her throat, flatly. In consideration, a pox of insistent metaphor on David Jacobs, and on some reflection eh? ...And too bad about the legacies of Bud Hopkins... and Harvey Weinstein...
Saddling up for Jacobs and donning the associative red sash (as he most stridently did), he sauntered on down to that "OK Corral" himself, and his un-asterisked legacy was mowed down in the well-provoked crossfire. Moreover, uncaring primary histories will demonstrate that a certain "lack of respect" for "women," in the aggregate, is evidenced by these two—a decided undersell in this writer's opinion.
These were ready adherents, one would suppose, to the now outdated and outmoded, if wholly Tennysonian sentiment: "Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine." Never! ...Gylany! Learn it. Know it. Live it. Love it.
Sadly, one can suspect David Jacobs (and the memory of that sullen, critically ill, but, most importantly, validating Budd Hopkins) as having an idiosyncratic credit with persons entirely apart from themselves, a credit plunging to worthlessness with this writer; however, when Jacobs is seen (or heard) “committing” (that rock kicked, and decidedly, over!), the betraying “crimes” alleged and senselessly perpetrated on a legitimately trusting Woods, on-air… and the late Hopkins, in the winter of his winter and apparently thinking only of his own "abduction" legacy, doubled down for Jacobs in an intellectually insulting defense regarding the unwinding and rancorous aftermath of what would come to be the Emma Woods story.
The writer says all of this having once loved Hopkins and Jacobs, himself, and verily, remember... bought their books and attended their lectures... loved them as courageous teachers and bold explorers of inner and outer space! Terence McKenna level respect! McKenna, thankfully, has not yet been disgraced. Yet? No one is immune.
Jacobs, conversely, made his own bed (or had it recorded!), in the first place, with Ms. Woods (et al), and any supporter of Hopkins has never travailed to "sail South" of him in even respectful disagreement, in the second... like this writer was once compelled to do in an issue of UFO Magazine.
Hopkins could get petty, dismissive, and nasty, eh? In print, too.
He once shouted at an aforementioned and questioning Terence McKenna during a UFO conference on one occasion last century, according to McKenna... Something similar to a Trumpian "loyalty" is demanded with some mavens of the ufological...
Do you know what this writer is betting? Jacobs supporters have never, no, not one time, ever, talked with Emma Woods. They've never listened to her clear-record evidence. These must errantly believe that this massive and well-vetted evidentiary aural pathway provided against Jacobs is faked, confabulated, or contrived! These must cling, apparently, to their eroding paradigms and betraying heroes with feet of river mud aswirl in a blackwater swamp. The writer is reminded of a Trump supporter.
Moreover, this writer waded into that "accusation" of Jacobs fully expecting to take this "obnoxious woman" Woods, down, himself, vindication assured for both Jacobs and Hopkins! ...Another notion quickly disabused. See, where one looks one may find. The reader will remember what was writ about disabused high regard and falling heavens...
Sincerely, how can these supporters then speak to her "obsessiveness”… and “stalking behavior”?! Forget for a moment she’s on the other side of the freaking planet, an expatriate of the African continent and a person wholly, and very safely, ignored… no, instead she must be very suspiciously pilloried by Jacobs' adoring fans and ready lickspittles for her "dismissable temerity" of self-defense!
...And reader, let's digress a moment and wonder about the base character of the man accused by this woman. This is the kind and gentle person his adoring public would have as a respected teacher and edge academician. That man would have loudly and unequivocally decried her fervid persecution by his legion of fans and sycophants... be outraged and offended by her treatment! Though, not so much with the good Doctor... especially where no discouragement is encouragement, right?
Reader, the opinion considered says the evidence instructs and convinces this writer that Jacobs intellectually “raped” Emma woods, he salaciously mind-f**ked her, reader, and for apparent lascivious amusement and pecuniary interests! That is a nonpartisan assessment viewing, if one stupified by the enormity of that which is illustrating such and so, and it is well-vetted with evidence acknowledged by principals in the affair.
What follows is but this writer's observed take, but when wholly innocent Ms. Woods caught wise of what our good doctor was doing, and further observed, herself, as she wanted to bail and said so, that he'd decided he couldn’t otherwise profit from her? He cut his losses and betrayed her, psychologically infecting her, in a suggestible state, with a corrosive psychological toxicity of untoward and unlearned hypnotic suggestion, and then "skipped town," in the association sense!
That suggested invasive mechanism regarded a risible "diagnosis" by Dr. Jacobs, of a baseless if exceedingly dangerous "psychosis" requiring psychotic drugs and perhaps even self-commitment or institutionalization—and all this from a history teacher! This seems clear to a person willing to see "forests" for "trees," eh? Moreover, it's all down hard on vetted tape and digital recordings: his malfeasance, his utter lack of due diligence, his narrative cross-pollination of his research subjects, one presumes to establish that narrative. What science was this?
Consider… Over the aforementioned and wholly unentangled long haul, this writer has come to understand Emma Woods, he believes. And she’s just not that hard to understand… she's THIS writer!
See, a similar affair happened to this writer vis a vis one particularly nasty little net-weasel's fallacious, if public (!), no-evidence suggestion. His suggestion that this writer was an f'n pedophile, for Christ's sake!
Regarding such slander… and does anybody want to criticize this writer's “obsessiveness” and “stalking behavior” in many public forums, over the years, as regards consequences for that net-weasel's horrific slander... and what then turned into years of sniping at him everywhere he's seen to raise his pointy little head?
Mmmmmm-no? Good. See, like one Rich Reynolds? This writer will happily eat your literary face, too. The offense was real and my outrage would more than match it!
No! This writer will pursue and righteously harass his graceless slanderers until he gets effusive and unabashed public apologies or six figures in “slander per se” damages, by the gods! Remember, flawless reputations are smeared and, perhaps, the reputation of a son of the same name besmirched with unconscionable casualness, too… maybe a future embarrassment to his grandchildren! In a less enlightened time, the writer would have cut him to pieces in a duel! Let THAT be in the record!
No, it's in the court of public opinion remaining at the last. That remains the only tool for the remotest recompense for situations such as these… This writer will avail himself of them righteously and justifiably. The writer can then, of course, have no criticism for a similarly just and righteous Emma Woods!
Emma Woods, it is offered then, is cut from a similar if not a more refined yard of cloth than this writer. There is nothing obsessive in her diligent activity leading to the righteous restoration of one's own self-respect and sense of self-worth, personal attributes stolen by a platoon of seeming psychopaths for reasons most unconscionably foul and wrong-minded, it could be guessed. It’s not stalking behavior campaigning to right an egregious wrong—righted wrongs are important! Righted wrongs establish personal relevancy and aid in the aspiration to efficacious self-actualization!
Moreover, the reader would feel differently were the horrors endured by Woods endured... but by the reader, eh? Why must anyone be depressed by the depraved, unwarranted, and unconscionable ignominy of erstwhile others...
It’s important enough, perhaps, to risk a possible positive place in recorded history, one's valued "friendships," even banishment and expulsion from one's “respected” community if that inclusion and placement denotes signing on for dishonor. Consequently, where it comes to justice for one innocently if hugely wronged, the hard-spun celebratory memory of Budd Hopkins or extended credit for a thoroughly discredited (one would think!) David Jacobs... is just not worth the price of admission.
It’s important enough, perhaps, to risk a possible positive place in recorded history, one's valued "friendships," even banishment and expulsion from one's “respected” community if that inclusion and placement denotes signing on for dishonor. Consequently, where it comes to justice for one innocently if hugely wronged, the hard-spun celebratory memory of Budd Hopkins or extended credit for a thoroughly discredited (one would think!) David Jacobs... is just not worth the price of admission.
This writer is driven to his expressed opinion by the observed selfish cruelties of the late Budd Hopkins (et al) and a presently smirking David Jacobs... with his legion of biased and conflicted supporters. Remains, one can see themselves in Emma Woods.
“Perforce we are plagued
with an _odious_ ignorance…
the sordid results
of those faults not our own,
as some lack respect
for the folk shoved beneath them…
and lacking compassion?
Blood's drawn from a stone!”
As a person aspiring to the loyal Ronin himself (Ask Nancy Birnes, Lesley Gunter, or Reagan Lee for bonafides!) this writer suspects that there are few lone wolves, really… one would offer that many of these serve their masters but are entirely toothless without them. This person aspires to own his own teeth.
See, it is one thing to feel welcome in a camp, to stride in confidently to the fire still wearing your saber. It is wholly another having scraps thrown from that same fire and, whimpering in acrawl on your belly sans sword, be awash in cognitive dissonance, bereft of honor, and, bemused by psychopathic monsters... be enjoined to scrape for that "rich man's" crumbs. That is metaphor, reader.
What is this hold that Jacobs has on people who should know better in the face of abundant evidence to a terrible contrary? It's a talent of psychopaths. Required are only unblinking mendacity and a penchant for self-aggrandizing psychopathy to serve the profitable lusts of others.
Yeah—fervent Jacobs supporters may even be third-string Groupies thinking they’re in the band, so capering in masturbatory delight at the fuss they cause in the real world... where there is so much clear evidence to the contrary! ...But is all that actually beneath concern, consideration, and ready contempt? Yes.
Didn’t these persons reach out as third parties and try, effortlessly, to snuff out Emma Woods' voice (website and even web-presence!) like Rush Limbaugh ball-gagging Sandra Fluke? That’s why he has to be mashed like a bug, eh? Excised from all relevancy. Canceled, in a word.
This writer is asked quite a bit, “What did Hopkins or Cortile do to you?” People seem to want to know what happened in that regard. They would have no questions about this writer's criticism of Jacobs, by the way.
Folks seem to get that in spades… …and when considered, given every shred of evidence… considered evidence, and vetted evidence, forgetting the recorded admissions of Jacobs himself... how does everyone not get it! It’s like an eldritch spell of the Trumpian arcane was cast!
Hopkins was “fine,” in comparison… The writer loved him, himself, as was writ earlier… until one found one had to disagree with him… then he could turn into a lanky Big Dick Cheney, eh? ...Shoot you right in the face.
So, it was his authoritarianism eclipsed by his foursquare, steadfast, and unreasoning (self-interested?) support for Jacobs this writer can’t get past… where Jacobs was so profoundly, and so demonstrably, reader, “dirty,” one will recall... no lipstick for that pig, n'est ce pas?
...And Cortile? This writer feels or opines, based on the reports of principals concerned, that she seems the liar and psychopath and led Hopkins down a primrose path he wanted to be led down because she "proved" his thesis, a thesis ultimately not supported in any of his "bigger" cases: Linda Cortile, herself, and finally Jim Mortellaro… In the third of the three, Mortellaro, the reader will recall, this writer was very near the supportive center, as said above, and can report, again, that that affair turned out to be a real steaming pile of lurid psychosis, personally wounding and embarrassing, if one digresses for some meaningful repetition...
Sorry if the reader’s a Hopkins fan. This writer was, too. This writer, too...
…But what does anyone, reader, have to do for another, in a presumed professional sense, but not disappoint, dishearten, disillusion… or of course, let down, deceive, or betray the subject ministered to? It would seem, and early on too, that Jacobs, in this writer's considered opinion, was a stealthy practitioner of all of that!… and do you know what a named credible authority on psychopathy and serial killers, Dr. William Birnes, once told this writer about Dr. Jacobs? One bets you DO know! Dr. Birnes felt that in his considered opinion that Jacobs was cut from cloth closely related to, and every bit the dominating predator, describing the serial sex criminal... purloined soiled under-drawers and chastity belts, after all. One must wonder if that can be true.
Hopkins was cool with all that; so, and in some extreme ways, what did Hopkins "do" to this writer as a result of his lack of due diligence, his evidentiary cherry-picking, his ponderous denialism, his unlearned, ill-appropriated, misused, and pretty squirmy hypnotism, and his gravid self-interest or concern for a subsequently baseless (largely) ufological legacy? What was a legacy larded with personal betrayals and convenient mal-alliances... ...but a disappoint to dishearten, disillusion… even let down, deceive, or betray... this writer! That’s the short answer to any earnest concerns of the reader... These betrayed, in the fashion of its way, this writer.
Closing, some might provide that the dead can’t defend themselves. Untrue as it is irrelevant, legacy is earned and the writer spent too much time in reverence to Christopher Columbus to have a concern for legacy. Show the writer who you are, and he'll know you couldn't have been what you were. Moreover, the writer offers that many supporters remain… pick one! There are ready defenders… stalwarts to take this writer to task for his transgressions upon "honored memories" in any neutral forum at any time… Indeed, Dr. Jacobs can thank the initiatives of these "supporters" for any rekindled interest in him currently playing out… …in the writer's opinion! Still, one wonders if that pleases him.
Too, has Emma Woods composed a two, maybe three, volume outline of her experience with the "good doctor" for publication? It would be a constructive initiative outlining the evolution of a betrayal to a trust. We shall see...
Did the writer go on and on? Yet, here we are.
Restore John Ford.
Amy Lubchansky
