Brooklyn Bridge Abductions (1/3): The Lady of the Sands

• Death of the Voles
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Thomm Quackenbush

On November 30, 1989, aliens stole Linda Napolitano from her sleep, setting off one of the most extraordinary and harrowing cases in the abduction canon. This event promised to upend all that researchers thought they knew. As Budd Hopkins put it in his book on the case, Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions, "This abduction event so drastically alters our knowledge of the alien incursion in our world that it is easily the most important in recorded history." (p. XIV-1)

Alternately, Napolitano was a quick-witted attention-seeker and/or was enabled by some of the biggest names in ufology, which is no less important.

(Napolitano is called Linda Cortile in the book and therefore is in some critical materials based on Witnessed. As a pseudonym, "Cortile" does not excel.)

The abduction, assuming it occurred as described, was startling in part because of the setting. In most such cases, the person reports being snatched from some remote road or while summering in their second home in the woods--the aliens prefer a lower profile. (This series will not render an opinion of the broader context of alien abductions; it is not meant to ascribe them to interstellar or interdimensional beings--though they will remain "aliens" for literary convenience.) Napolitano was sucked through the regulation child guard on the window of her twelfth-floor Manhatten apartment, managing not to rouse her husband Steve, slumbering next to her. She was not levitated out the open window but extracted directly through the wall as though either it or she had no substance, strikingly pulled by a white light into a red UFO wearing nothing more than a white nightgown, escorted by three beings saying, "NOBBYEGG. [Loudly] NOBBYEGG." "NO KAVE. KAVE." "NOBBYEGG" "NO. KAVE." (p. 15) (She responded, "KAVE-me or KAVE-y," though she did not know what this meant.)

On the ship, "she was subjected to a series of quasi-medical procedures and was returned to her bedroom about two hours later" (p. 6), none of which is too unusual when it comes to these experiences. As such, Hopkins ignored her letter, having juicier and weirder cases to pursue for his next book.

Yet this became one of the most famous cases despite (or because of) its implausibility. As Carol Rainey, Hopkins' collaborator and ex-wife, explained in her Paratopia article, "The Priests of High Strangeness," "It was highly dramatic, paced like a thriller—full of otherworldly treachery, forbidden love, UFOs over Manhattan, twenty-two witnesses, a heroine whose red blood cells were immortal, lusty and dangerous Secret Service agents, a Prince from afar, gifts of many fur coats, chases on foot, more forbidden love, an X-rayed alien implant." Given this proclamation (that is not a recommendation of Witnessed), it is difficult not to want to examine the case, though not without fomenting doubts. Even Napolitano humbly suggested, "Maybe it wasn't me that [witnesses] saw [...] Maybe it was somebody else who lives near me." (p. 23)

This is unlikely. Napolitano never seems to encounter a tangentially involved party who doesn't stress how pretty she is, even when they want her dead. Hopkins described her as:

a slender, attractive woman in her late forties, with wavy, dark brown hair and high, prominent cheekbones. The stylishness of her clothes contrasts nicely with her natural informality. Though she is very ladylike and proper most of the time, she can be very frank and amusing in conversation, and when she's angry she can be surprisingly earthy. (p. 10)

In a March 9, 1991 tape, Richard--a man who becomes instrumental in the case--adds, "Linda is a darling little lady" and "Linda's of good character, and you can bring that to the bank." (p. 34) In another letter, his cohort Dan notes, "We will not allow her graceful appearance or supposed ancestral background to hamper our judgment anymore." (p. 97) Evidently, Napolitano's beauty cannot go unremarked upon.

As Joseph J. Stefula, Richard D. Butler, and George P. Hansen note in their paper "A Critique of Budd Hopkins' Case of the UFO Abduction of Linda Napolitano":

It has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal (Jefferson, 1992), Omni (Baskin, 1992), Paris Match (De Brosses, 1992), the New York Times (Sontag, 1992), and Hopkins and Napolitano have appeared on the television show Inside Edition. The Mufon UFO Journal labeled it "The Abduction Case of the Century" (Stacy, 1992, p. 9). Even the technical magazine ADVANCE for Radiologic Science Professionals carried a discussion of Linda's nasal implant (Hatfield, 1992).

The bona fides of the authors of this paper are as solid as these things come. Stefula was New Jersey's Director for the Mutual UFO Network as well as a former Special Agent for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command.

Butler is a self-proclaimed pro-ufologist who writes on debunking. He claims to have had abduction experiences himself. He was also a former law enforcement and security police specialist for the U.S. Air Force.

Hansen professed to have been employed in the parapsychology labs at the Rhine Research Center (whose "mission is to advance the science of parapsychology, to provide education and resources for the public, and to foster a community for individuals with personal and professional interest in PSI") and the Psychophysical Research Laboratories. He authored the bizarre and exhaustively researched The Trickster and the Paranormal (called "erudite and compassionate" by Rainey), which posits that the trickster archetype is evident in many challenging parapsychological cases. In the introduction to The Trickster...", he writes:

This book is about foretelling the future, the occult, magic, telepathy, mind over matter, miracles, power of prayer, UFOs, Bigfoot, clairvoyance, angels, demons, psychokinesis, and spirits of the dead. These all interact with the physical world. This book explains why they are problematical for science.

One might like a skeptic of the Napolitano case who skewed closer to the science than the pseudoscience, but he will have to do. In his own work, though he might suggest otherwise, Hansen does not come off as a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic (or even a skeptic with a light wash).

Although these authors' fields of expertise may not be widely considered credible, one must recognize their knowledge. Their article dealt with what they personally investigated, not any conclusions that would satisfy a Weekly World News headline.

Any ufologist worth their MUFON membership leans first on skepticism by pointing out potential holes in an abductee's story, especially when Napolitano's initial letter to Hopkins—the one that failed to arouse his interest—was so routine that she could have been cribbing directly from Hopkins' last book.

Her abduction occurred at 3 AM with Napolitano waking from a dead sleep surrounded by stereotypical aliens: short of stature, thin of limb, big of eye. This suggests a hypnopompic hallucination, as evidenced by her writing her "body became numb and too heavy to move [...] I had the strange feeling that someone was there [...] although my body was asleep [...] my mind put up a struggle." (p. 7) These states are far less rare than many parts of the story. Most people will experience this at some point in their lives. (I have had my four: an imp under my bed grabbing my finger, a glowing spider web hovering over me, my wife making faces at the foot of our bed while sleeping next to me, and a golden retriever in a party hat.)

Even at 3 AM, this was no less the City That Never Sleeps. There is no hour one could consider quiet or when thousands of people would not be around to witness something all but unprecedented in the annals of the paranormal. According to a Skeptical Inquirer article by Lloyd Stires, Hopkins' sixty-page booklet Unusual Personal Experiences: An Analysis of the Data from Three National Survey, (cowritten with history professor David Jacobs of Temple University and sociology professor Ron Westrum of Eastern Michigan University) claims, based on a random sample of 5,947 people, around 3.7 million were abducted by 1993. Few of these cases involved onlookers watching the afflicted swallowed into a ship via a tractor beam.

For the first time, there were multiple unrelated witnesses to a spectacular abduction. Unfortunately, there were reportedly only twenty-two. For reasons that are not explained by Hopkins, most of these do not seem to merit detailing beyond that number. More unfortunately, the best-case scenario was that two of the witnesses were unhinged and/or homicidal rapists who kidnapped Napolitano for hours and tracked her for years. It would be more comfortable to believe Napolitano spun the comparatively commonplace story of alien abduction into an intricate conspiracy where she is a hybrid star child than that she was beset by men who wished her molested or destroyed.

At the time of her abduction (the words "alleged" and "presumed" will be omitted in regards to the event, but consider them implied), Napolitano was a forty-one-year-old mother of two--who doubtlessly would have taken umbrage at Hopkins' suggesting she was in her late forties. She was inclined to write the experience off as a nightmare until she read abduction researcher Budd Hopkins' book Intruders. A hitch in her story is the order of these events. She had read the book before her abduction, which throws her initial stock accounting into a suspicious light or gives fodder for the idea it was only a bad dream. What occurred to Napolitano is not indicative of what occurs with most people having this experience. She is more singular than exemplary.

If one were even casually involved with alien abductions at the time (or even now), one had heard of Elliot Budd Hopkins, an esteemed artist turned ufologist and author. He made his name in Fortean phenomena by propagating the idea of hypnotizing experiencers to root out locked memories. As Rainey wrote, "To audiences around the world, Budd Hopkins was often introduced as the man who had single-handedly brought the alien abduction phenomenon to the attention of the world." Nowadays, hypnotism is so standard that any layperson knows regression therapy is what is done, but some of the credit (or blame) for that should lay at Hopkins' feet.

Before Hopkins' hypnotism, Napolitano had scattered flashes of what had happened. After, she had a rich, involved, evolving story that would not be out of place in a pulp sci-fi novel. One could argue that Hopkins, wanting a juicy case, led Napolitano to discoveries that would bolster his interest, or she unconsciously conformed to what she knew he wanted to hear--this malleability, this willingness to say under hypnotism exactly what the hypnotist wants to hear, put people behind bars during the Satanic Panic and specifically McMartin preschool trial.

Even in the best of circumstances, a witness' memories of crimes are unreliable. No prosecutor would build a case only on these. Hopkins likewise reads as reluctant to do as much without something meatier as a foundation.

On February 1, 1991, "Police Officers Dan and Richard," as they signed their letter, wrote to Hopkins unprompted:

We didn't know what to do or who to turn to and hadn't done so until recently. We searched the bookstores over and came up with [Hopkins]. There was an address in your book Intruders but it was through your publishers. In turn, we let our fingers do the walking through the white pages. (p. 3)

The final phrase is cutesy for a letter of this supposed gravity and should have given the researcher hesitation. Does this read as the verbiage of a police officer in this circumstance? This is far from the only time their manner of writing is discordant. Elsewhere, they refer to aliens as "ugly little squirt" and "misfits"--not simply unevocative terms, but inexplicably juvenile.

They told Hopkins that, from their "patrol car underneath the elevated FDR Drive on South Street and Catherine Slip," (p. 4) they had seen a woman, escorted by "three ugly but smaller humanlike creatures, one above her and two below," levitating outside her apartment building, which would give anyone examining the case a location with pinpoint accuracy. They stated the object was "about three-quarters the size of the building across" and that "we'll never forget the look on her face, pure white with no expression, a white marble doll hanging in the air like a Christmas-tree doll" (p. 36) -- indicative of the florid, awkward prose that infuses the duo's letters.

Napolitano remembered that her nightgown was above her, so she was possibly naked, something the duo did not recount. Hopkins mulls over this inconsistency before deciding, "rather than damaging either Richard's or Linda's credibility, the differing recollections of subject and witnesses supported the truthfulness of all." (p. 38) He then coached Linda through how this could have happened until she agreed it did. He claimed, "This would not be the only time in Linda's case in which details that seemed, at first glance, to be discrepancies turned out after examination to be powerful evidence in support of the integrity of all concerned."

The ship plunged into the East River. Richard recounted, "We waited and looked over the river for about 45 minutes. It never came up again. It stayed under there." (p. 36)

Despite knowing exactly which Napolitano's window was, they waited around fifteen months before reaching out to Hopkins for reassurance she was not either imaginary or dead. "[F]or Dan the experience of actually meeting the woman they had seen floating out of the window so many months before had been emotionally devastating—so devastating, in fact, that Dan had put in for a leave of absence from work." (p. 30) "A Critique of Budd Hopkins' Case..." noted that Hopkins had elsewhere said Richard had taken the leave of absence. Perhaps they both did at different times.

Why they first wrote to Hopkins, of all people--why they wrote to anyone at all--is worth pondering. How could they know that Napolitano had any connection with the ufologist? Or did they? Given that they were officers of the law and had seen exactly where Napolitano was extracted, why didn't they feel justified knocking on her door to be sure every occupant was accounted for?

Conveniently, they wrote to Hopkins to corroborate the memories Napolitano had just unearthed in hypnosis sessions. According to Philip J. Klass' article "MUFON, CUFOS Leaders Meet With Budd Hopkins' New .. Queen-Bee Abductee .. –And Her Critics" in Skeptics UFO Newsletter 1992, Richard and Dan were able to find Napolitano's exact apartment without any direction from Hopkins, but perhaps that is only because they finally extrapolated from when they had seen her dangling out of its window. When Napolitano encountered the duo in person for the first time, she assured them, "If you don't want to be seen and you want to stay anonymous, Budd'll keep it that way." (p. 25)

Dan wanted to know, "How did you manage to get outside of the building the way you did?" Napolitano equated his putting the onus of this impossibility to asking a rape victim why they made the rapist do it.

Witnessed states that Napolitano gave Richard and Dan Hopkins' contact information. As they had already written him a letter, this doesn't parse.

Given their resources and first-hand knowledge, they should have been in a better position than Hopkins to determine whether the levitating woman was safe and real, yet they weren't. Hopkins wrote, "My astonishment at reading this letter was all the more profound because I was almost certain that I knew the woman in the long white gown whom the officers had seen." (p. 6)

The field of sympathetic ufologists is large, so what good luck that Richard sent the letter to just the right man. We can assume they didn't write to any other ufologists, as either those researchers or Hopkins would have made sure to say so.

Philip Coppens, in his article, "Eye Of The Psychic New York, New York: The Linda Napolitano' abduction,'" posits, "The extra-ordinariness of the case rests solely on these two CIA people contacting Hopkins, for no reason. So why did they do it? It is a question seldom posed, as it can only lead to one answer: it was a set-up [...] perhaps to undermine a real encounter or to inject damaging disinformation. Perhaps it is in the best interest of the government to allow, even engender, the alien myth in American society."

These excerpts of letters were reproduced in Witnessed. Had Hopkins wanted to ease how skeptical the reader would be via judicious omission, he could have. Did he not think this was overly curious, or did Hopkins wish to foster doubt?

It is remarkable that the duo were so skittish about finding Napolitano earlier, as they immediately set to knowing her daily schedule and intercepting her several times a week, apparently keeping her under surveillance--an odd thing to do when one is concerned about someone's welfare. Richard was beset by nightmares that he tried to arrest the aliens mid-abduction, but "one of those SOBs shoots me with a ray gun and it's all over for me." (p. 40) He claimed that secretly watching Napolitano reaffirmed the reality of what happened, letting him no longer feel crazy, though trailing a near stranger belies that.

Dan admitted he tried stalking Linda to abate his craziness, but "it doesn't work for me." (p. 39) As such, he told Hopkins, "I sleep with a sledgehammer by my side instead of a woman." (p. 41) Dan reported that "Richie has the same fear. He bought a blowup dummy of a man, and puts him in his bed every night, and sleeps in the spare room. Is this normal for two grown men? I wouldn't think so." This is certainly one explanation for the blowup doll, though not the likeliest.

Soon, the duo changed their stories, recovering the memories of being abducted as well, and witnessed an even more outlandish scene.

Dan explained the new turn of events in his September 1991 letter ("This memory was of a single word, 'sand,' which triggered other memories" ):

After the object splashed into the river with Linda in it, the third party wanted to swim out to find her. We stopped him and walked with him to the car. Instantaneously, we found ourselves sitting on a seashore somewhere [...] We didn't know how we arrived there [...] We looked straight ahead of us, and there we saw the girl we had seen in the light of the UFO earlier on. She was bending down by the sea alongside of those creatures. They were digging in the sand, using what looked like scooped shovels. They put their findings in square or rectangular metallic boxes or pails [...] The three beings didn't appear to speak. But we could hear a voice coming from the girl's direction [...] She spoke in a peculiar foreign tongue. At one point [...] all of them walked up to us as we sat there. The girl (Linda) held up what appeared to us to be a lifeless fish and said to us in a bold voice -- 'LOOK AND SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE'....! I asked her who she was. She didn't answer. One of the beings replied, 'Lady of the Sands' [...] Soon after they turned on their heels (no toes, except for Linda's) and they walked away toward the sea [...] Next Richard and I were back by our car trying to pull the third party off the roof of it..." (p. 89)

While aboard a ship, Richard purloined a sample of sand the aliens had processed, which showed slight differences under an electron microscope. If nothing else, it demonstrated the aliens' lax security.

Hopkins had the sand examined by experts, hoping it would prove an origin. Given the low percentage of calcium carbonate, "it had not come from a tropical, shell-strewn beach, yet no precise location has ever been posited." (p. 360) After sending it to various experts, he was unsurprised to learn that "the sand is mostly made up of silicon, with trace metals such as silver, iron, and aluminum."

This was not a complete dead end since this is true only of the unprocessed sand. Roger J. Smid, a laboratory assistant to Dr. Vernon Hodge in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Nevada, reported:

The [refined] sample appeared to have a 'milky coating' on all the crystals. . . . Luster was a dull milky finish. . . . Biotites appeared to be enhanced (greenish to black). [...] trace analysis has shown a presence of Rare Earths . . . which would indicate an overall structure of Monazite sands. . . . The Gallium present is interesting from the standpoint that Gallium residue or globules containing Zinc, Indium and Lead are found in smelting furnace residue. Higher traces than normal were found. (p. 361)

This does not prove some alien origin--which is not what anyone seems to claim for it--but that the sand's provenance might not have been this beach. We do not have a chain of custody or any need to believe it originated where Richard said. This is all dependent on Hopkins trusting men he had never met--men who may not exist--then with the reader trusting Hopkins.

Hopkins is not immune to imperfections in Napolitano's story. In an interview after Napolitano supposedly encountered Richard and Dan for the first time, he said, "I want some way to establish that they were actually there. You see, a skeptic would say you made it all up." (p. 25) In her reply, she conjures what they look like and how they dressed ("like they've been in the police force for quite some time") but provides no evidence that should satisfy him. As Hopkins' interest and patience for the story began to wane, it may be that Napolitano began (intentionally or unconsciously) manufacturing new details to keep his attention on her until the story got away from her. The police officers were losing their luster, partly because Hopkins could never meet them outside letters and cassette tapes--they never seemed to appear on security cameras, and the one supposed recording of Dan was unverifiable. According to one of their letters, "Mr. Hopkins, we hope that you can understand why we won't be coming forward. This whole situation goes too high in the ranks to do so." (p. 49)

"A Critique of Budd Hopkins' Case..." notes that a physician had insisted Napolitano had had nasal surgery, something she was sure hadn't happened, which was backed up by her mother. According to Klass, this doctor was Napolitano's cousin, so not an unbiased party. Immediately after the X-ray--before it could be developed or discussed--Napolitano went home. When a friend ("a very strong neurosurgeon") examined the X-rays, he exclaimed, "Holy Cats!"

Two days later, she woke with blood covering her hand, evidently because the aliens had learned about the X-ray and wanted to remove the evidence ahead of Hopkins getting his hands on it.

Shortly after this, she woke with another nosebleed. When she went into the living room, both her sons, her husband, and a sixteen-year-old boy who was spending the night sat there, bleeding from their noses. Did the aliens put implants in all of them that needed to be removed? Did they neglect to check the box that showed they had already performed an extraction on Napolitano, so they had to check everyone in the apartment? Is that why they bloodied the boy spending the night--who one hopes didn't spend another night there?

Hopkins lays out the possibilities:

Obviously, Linda's account was either true or a hoax; there was no middle ground. Richard and Dan were either real, or Linda had made them up. It seemed impossible to Joseph [an off-duty law-enforcement officer temporarily hired to watch over Napolitano] that the Linda and Steve he had come to know had the will, the motive, or the capacity to forge so much consistent evidence, hire and train accomplices, discover arcane facts about diplomatic license plates, and in Linda's case, convincingly act the part of a genuinely frightened woman. (p. 87)

This gathering doubt might have justified the escalation of the Third Man.

Comments? Questions? Concerns? Do you want to set the record straight? Are you Linda Napolitano? Contact me.