It is curious that while instances of alleged abduction by UFO aliens are rife in North America, they should be considerably less virulent in the Spanish-speaking regions of the world. This is made all the more curious due to the fact that one of the earliest cases, and the one most readily memorable, is without question the Antonio Villas-Boas abduction (Brazil, 1957). Its graphic retelling of the victim's overpowering by helmeted aliens, the oft-mentioned sexual interlude with a space "siren" and the severe physiological aftereffects suffered by Villas-Boas rocked the nascent discipline of ufology to the core. But that was in days long gone by, when UFO abductions involved the physical interference with a single or many humans in a deserted location, usually a rural highway, a desert or a forest--way before the ubiquitous "Greys" were transporting helpless experiencers through their bedroom walls, inducing pregnancies and involving them in apparent genetic studies.

Comparative analysts like T.E. Bullard have pointed out that the abduction phenomenon is largely an American one, with one of every two cases coming out of the U.S. and Canada -- half of all abduction experiences are "made in the U.S.A." This gives us another half distributed around the rest of the planet, and the Spanish-speaking regions of the world certainly have their fair share. What is the modus operandi of the abductors in these locations? Are there any Greys, Nordics or other non-humans involved? Is hypnosis a tool of choice as it is here? We shall examine a number of cases first.

An abduction through meditation?

Puerto Rico, notorious for its intense UFO activity and the depredations of the now-legendary Chupacabras, boasts a considerable number of UFO abduction cases. One of these cases stands out among the others due to the possibility that the experiencer's efforts at meditation "opened up" a path for abducting Greys to enter her life.

Delia V., a housewife with two children, had no idea that her interest in Yoga would turn her into an abductee when she and a friend visited a yoga temple in October 1991 to practice meditative techniques. At 7:30 p.m., Delia decided to withdraw from the meditation circle and go to bed early. Once in bed, she felt a hand covering her face, and was unable to see who her potential assailant was due to the darkness in the bedroom. It was then that she became aware of the fact that she was flying in mid-air toward a given point in space: buildings, streets and automobiles remained far below Delia as she drifted upward, but far from feeling elated at the sight, she was paralyzed by fear.

The next thing she remembers is being back in bed at the yoga temple at five o'clock in the morning, feeling sick to her stomach and racked by excruciating pain. Stumbling out of her room, she told the meditation instructor what had happened, and he advised her to simply return to sleep, which she did. Reawakening at noon, not only did she feel physically better -- her entire outlook on life had been changed, by her own admission. During the following months, some physical changes had also come about as a consequence of that unusual night: her menstrual cycle now ran every 50 days or so, and her stomach became slightly enlarged.

A subsequent experience revealed the UFO connection to her experiences: shortly after seeing a brilliant craft in the sky, she found herself standing in a metallic chamber occupied by a dozen or so very small, non-human beings clad in gray. Delia remembers lying on a bed, screaming and crying, telling one of the bizarre figures that she could not give normal birth to the child she was carrying because her other children had been born by cesarean section. "When I woke up," Delia says. "I saw one of the extraterrestrials with a child in his arms. When I saw this child something deep inside me told me he was my child, but I also remember being afraid. I remember telling one of the extraterrestrials that I considered this child strange, because he was half human and half extraterrestrial." Delia was then given the child to hold, and was told by the creatures that it could not live among humans because it could not eat human food.

Delia's case echoes the hundreds of abduction experiences collected by U.S. investigators. It has observed that Puerto Rican abduction cases have a stronger environmental content to them than those on the mainland: experiencers are imparted messages of ecological importance and cases involving hybridization are few. The modus operandi of the abductors remains slightly behind the times -- the controversial Amaury Rivera case (1988) involved interference with the experiencer's vehicle. Other cases in which humans in lonely areas or alone at a late hour have been victims of abductions are also on file.

The Importance of Ancestry

Rolando Quiroga Valero, age 51, of the town of Allende, not far from Monterrey, told his story of repeated alien abduction to a spellbound audience in a segment of a Miami-based talk show. "There are daily sightings over my hometown," Quiroga observed laconically. "But no one cares."

Quiroga's first contact took place in 1950. He was with a group of friends in Monterrey when he saw a discoidal craft hovering over his head at some 50 meters distance (some 160 feet). He was partially paralyzed by the vehicle, which emitted a soft orange light and produced a soft whistling sound. He perceived beings watching him from the disc. His friends ran away.

The following year he had another contact experience, seeing a UFO cross the skies over Allende. 24 years later, he began to have strange, unbidden thoughts, which led him to fear for his state of mental health. He was soon after able to hear a powerful male voice instructing him to "love all human beings". (It is curious to observe that the standard 1950's contactee message of peace and love continues to play a prominent role in these Latin American cases).

Quiroga believes that he was chosen because of his Mayan heritage: his alien contacts have hinted that the key to the UFO mystery lies in Man's deciphering of the Mayan hieroglyphs. His first physical encounter, however, came about in 1972, when he was "sanitized" by a ray of light and allowed into the presence of his hosts, who were "paranoid" about terrestrial viruses. These putative aliens died of heart complications, and had a 130-year life span, although they did not physically age beyond some human 40 years. The message entrusted to this Mexican contactee is a simple one, and it has been the cornerstone of all the messages given to contactees in the Spanish-speaking world: Earth is changing, whether we like it or not. There will be a natural, not a man-made, disaster in the future that will change the tilt of the planet's axis. Humans must evolve in order to survive. Ominously, he was also told that out of the many "alien races" that are visiting our world, only six are friendly toward the human race.

Perhaps more amazing than their monotonous message is the fact that Quiroga claims having been taken aboard a vehicle, where he underwent prostate and heart surgery. The contactee's physician was amazed at the improvement in his patient's condition, and was turned from skeptic into believer by what his eyes and instruments told him. Communications with the ufonauts have not ceased: Quiroga was warned of the earthquake that rocked Mexico City in 1985 two years ahead of time. "Their predictions," he says, "are usually of a negative nature."

Abduction experiences in Mexico tend to get blurred by contactee experiences. An early contactee, Armando Zurbarán, was taken from his car as he drove late at night between Mexico City and Acapulco. There has recently been an revival of contacteeism due to the successful "missionary activity" of Italian contactee Giorgio Bongiovanni, whose millenialist prophecies have found fertile ground in the crisis-torn land of the Aztecs.

The Darker Side

Not all experiencers find their hosts as sanguine as Mr. Valero's. The casebooks of Latin American researchers are filled with incidents in which malice and hostility played a significant role in the abduction. Dr. Rafael A. Lara, director of Mexico's Centro de Estudios de Fenómenos Paranormales (CEFP), includes in his organization's newsletter the experiences of Adriana Martínez, a woman who has experienced meddling in her life by forces purportedly linked with the UFO phenomenon.

Ms. Martínez's experiences began when she was only a teenager and a large ball of glowing red light would materialize in her bedroom at night. Due to her strict Catholic upbringing, she knew that such displays were associated with unwholesome forces. The "fireballs", as she termed them, seemed to herald the awakening of her own psychic abilities, and the distressing phenomenon disappeared as she became older.

Years later, now living in McAllen, Texas, a friend told her to run outside to see a UFO, although she wasn't in the least bit curious about such things. Complying with the request, she saw the strange glowing light, and soon afterward began to experience auditive communication with an alleged entity that claimed to be "her father." A luminous being appearing in a dream told her that she would get to see this paternal figure if she went to a location in a small Mexican town--Tepoztlán, now a center of "New Age" interest -- where a UFO display would be staged for her benefit.

On September 7, 1983, at 10 o'clock at night, a light started to appear. In Ms. Martínez's own words: "I leaped to the hotel window: above the hill there was a hamburger-shaped UFO, perfectly motionless, and it remained so for two hours. The power was going on and off all over the town. I later thought to make a triangle shape with my hands to communicate with the UFO, and they responded, since three red lights on the UFO assumed a triangular shape momentarily while green, yellow, and red navigation lights flew around the craft. Sounds like dull explosions could be heard coming from within the UFO while its lights became brighter. I went to the bathroom and told my friend that they were going to send her a light, and that she should not be frightened. A bright beam issued from the UFO aimed directly at the hotel window, right next to my friend. It was so powerful that all the lights went out in Tepoztlán."

The entity with whom she had engaged in mental communication began to make demands upon her, such as that she must divorce her then husband or become a widow, informing her that he had no qualms about eliminating anyone that stood in its path. While Ms. Martínez considered what to do, her husband had a terrible accident on the highway. Allegedly, the entity asked her if that demonstration of his power sufficed or if further proof was necessary.

Bitterly, she now believes that "contact is mere manipulation toward an end known only to them. They have given me no help whatsoever, and what they have done for me, according to them, has been very unpleasant." She adds: "I see that many contactees allow themselves to be manipulated without ever knowing where they're going or allow themselves to be dazzled by small manifestations...of course, once the contactee is 'hooked', there is no escape, and you accept your fate by hook or crook. I have rebelled terribly, but there is no escape but to fulfill their plans."

In 1980, a young TV and radio technician named Orlando Calizaya was abducted by a UFO while taking a break from work. As he bicycled his way to the town of Capachos, he suddenly noticed that his small transistor radio went dead. Upon getting off the bike, Calizaya was struck with an orange-colored beam that left him paralyzed.

Calizaya subsequently remembered that "a Christ-like voice" addressed him reassuringly, saying that no harm would be done to him. The stunned technician and his bike were raised up by the light into a spaceship "like those seen in films." Not one to give up without a struggle, Calizaya tried to resist and somehow escape from his captors, who proved to be three-eyed, large-eared humanoids, which wished to know "the role oxygen played in the human body." The unsightly ufonauts wore lilac-hued tunics and green trousers.

The young Bolivian became his country's first space traveler, if his account is to be believed, having spent 5 days on the alien's home world--a sojourn of which he had not the least recollection. Calizaya found himself once more back in Bolivia at the very same spot from where he was forcibly abducted. A group of highway workers picked him up and took him to a medical center. The aftermath of the experience left the 23 year-old technician with a nervous disorder, unable to work, and turned his once gregarious nature into a furtive one. Dr. Ruben Martínez, the attending physician, diagnosed his patient as being "in a state of psychomotor excitation".

Yet some manage to avoid being abducted, as in the case of "Lydia", a housewife from Cabo Rojo, P.R., who was in the middle of doing housework one evening in March 1993 when she observed a "brilliant cone" descending from the sky to a location only scant meters away from her home. Intrigued by the phenomenon, she stepped out to her backyard only to see an intensely white beam of light issuing from a hovering UFO. When she tried to turn around to re-enter her home, the housewife claimed to feel "something like a beam drawing me toward the UFO."

"As soon as she managed to scream," observed a police officer who took the report, "the object rose into the air quickly and without any noise whatsoever."

Saucers in Spain

Fernando Martínez (an alias given him by researcher Manuel Carballal), an electrician from the city of La Coruña in northwestern Spain never believed that a weekend of motor crossing on his freshly overhauled dirt bike would have ended in an abduction experience.

Sometime in late October 1986, Fernando drove his bike out to an abandoned stone quarry near the locale of Culleredo. At around 9 p.m., he suddenly became aware of a "star moving in the sky." The light became larger and larger until it became the size of a full moon. The astonished electrician noticed that the sphere disgorged a number of smaller, orange-colored triangular craft -- one of which initiated a rapid descent toward the abandoned quarry.

Realizing his predicament in a flash, Fernando tried to kick-start his dirt bike in vain, even though it had been running perfectly earlier. The UFO was now a large object, some 30 feet wide, hovering over the surface. In the face of the phenomenon, the electrician got off the dirt bike and sat on the ground, waiting to see what would happen next.

Fernando remembers a powerful beam of light emanating from the orange triangle, and two beings descending along the trail of light. The creatures were small and large-headed. They approached Fernando silently, guiding him toward the base of the hovering triangle. The human claims to have not felt any fear at the time, and that no effort at communication was made by his captors.

The next thing he realized was that he stood in a large chamber in which a third being, identical to the other two, came out to meet him, projecting reassuring telepathic messages. He remembers being placed in a horizontal position and feeling pain in one of his arms. His first conscious memory was that of lying on the gravel of the quarry in Culleredo. The dirt bike now worked perfectly, and the confused electrician made his way home. Two hours of his life were inexplicably unaccounted for.

Fernando Martínez's UFO experience had unfortunate consequences in his earthly experience: a Spanish magazine published his story, causing his employer to dismiss him. But he may be considered fortunate indeed in comparison to the experiencer of another Spanish case: In 1989, researcher Manuel Carballal met "Mariví" and her husband at a UFO conference in the city of Castellón, on Spain's Mediterranean coast. Mariví was afflicted by large-headed "bedroom visitors" who abducted her straight out of her bed while her husband was "unmanned" by the strange intruders -- an experience well-known to stateside abduction researchers, whose works the couple claimed to have never read.

Once aboard what she considered to be a spacecraft, Mariví was made to comply with her captors' wishes by sheer physical violence. In her case, the large-headed Greys were merely robots of some sort at the service of tall, blonde humanoids who despite their charismatic presence were by no means angelic. In her interview with Carballal, the abductee stated that she couldn't take much more of these experiences, and was resigned to the fact that "she would die young."

From South America to You

The overtly sexual component of UFO abduction cases is strongly present in this sampling of cases from the Hispanic world. A young Colombian woman, Monica María Ortega, recounted her experiences of nocturnal sexual experiences with supposedly alien entities nationally syndicated television talk show in November 1991. Her experiences did not involved the ever-present "Greys", but rather, one of the intriguing humanoids which are known to researchers variously as Blonds or Nordics.

Ms. Ortega was twelve years old at the time and living in New York City when this tall, blond, green-eyed entity suddenly materialized in her bedroom. "At first, I saw two lights. I felt a presence, and naturally felt scared. One light was red in color and the other was green," she recalled. The lights told her not fear for her safety. As she began to fall asleep, in spite of the luminous globes' presence, she felt caresses and kisses all over her body as her nightclothes were removed. "I felt something spread my legs open and a sharp pain soon after. I woke up terrified and saw a being in a tight-fitting outfit in bed with me. His eyes were so green that it made me dizzy to look at them. I found him very handsome, was attracted to him and fell in love."

Monica's lover and his silent companion (never manifested itself in human form) told her that they traveled around the world. Curiosity, they advised her, was the motivation for their sexual contacts.

After two years, Monica moved back to Colombia, and was overjoyed at seeing her otherworldly lover again. At the end of their encounter, Monica expressed a desire to go with him to "his world", but the being turned her down. 19 years old at the time of the interview, the young woman had still not had sex with a human male. "They have the advantage," she explained "of not making you pregnant."

Age does not appear to be an impediment in these affairs: during March 1993, Ernesto Cabán, a golden-ager from the town of Adjuntas in Puerto Rico's central region, claimed that a large object emitting multicolored lights made a soft landing on a hillside close to his home. This did not surprise Cabán, who was quite used to seeing UFOs over Adjuntas for decades--until he noticed three beings, two males and a female, heading toward his house. The bemused earthling described his unexpected guests as tall, fair-skinned and with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

Cabán claims that the large blonde aliens spoke "a somewhat strange" form of Spanish, but made themselves clearly understood: he was to mate with their female companion, and had no choice about it! The tall blonde female pointed out that it would be necessary "as part of an experiment taking place on their home world". In true gentlemanly fashion, Cabán declined to describe the particulars of the encounter, adding only that he hoped to live long enough to see the lovely alien and perhaps be presented with a "little ET" -- his otherworldly offspring.

The Scientific Verdict

While the abductions of humans by superhuman forces of varying descriptions appear to obey the same mechanisms worldwide, there has been little support for abductees in Latin America or Spain. There is a growing number of medical and scientific figures who have emerged as champions for the cause, but abduction experiences, as opposed to UFO cases, are met with perhaps greater skepticism in the Spanish-speaking countries than in the U.S. or the U.K.: During a convention of mental health care professionals held in Spain in 1990, a psychiatrist was asked to give his expert opinion on perfectly normal individuals who insisted on having experienced contact with alien creatures. "They're psychotic," the man declared cuttingly. "Anyone who sees things that don't exist is psychotic."

In a report prepared on the case for alien abductions in Spain, analyzing a dozen cases from 1947 to 1979 in which abduction by aliens was an issue, veteran researcher Vicente Juan Ballester Olmos points out: "This systematic review of abduction reports has disclosed that all cases can be reasonably explained in terms which do not defy present-day knowledge...it should be emphasized that the resolution of these cases in terms of hoax, delusion or psychosis has been proposed by dedicated UFO researchers, not by debunkers or dogmatic skeptics; consequently, it is unrealistic to suggest that the interpretations are biased."

Conclusions

In spite of the appearance of very important books on the subject of abductions written in Spanish, namely by Antonio Ribera's Secuestrados por Extraterrestres (Abducted by Extraterrestrials) and Manuel Carballal's Secuestrados por los OVNIS (Abduction by UFOs), neither one has had the success of Budd Hopkins' Missing Time or any one of Whitley Strieber's works. Few Latin American and Spanish psychiatrists have expressed a willingness to handle patients who claim to have been victims of alien abductions (there are notable exceptions, such as Puerto Rico's Manuel Méndez del Toro) and there is a reticence on the percipient's part to come forward with their experience.

In predominantly Catholic countries, experiencers might sooner chose to confide in a priest, believing that they are the victims of demonic obsession. Abduction cases in the Hispanic world appear to have a strong tendency toward contacteeism, complete with dire warnings about the situations humans have created on Earth by environmental pollution, warfare, etc., and urging humans to take a greater "evolutionary step".