SCIENCE FRICTION
I was abducted by aliens who gave me a NOSE JOB – 23 people witnessed the kidnap but it was dismissed as a hoax
Linda's horrifying claims caused a rift with the wife of the leading UFO hunter
LEVITATING thousands of metres above the ground, terrified Linda Napolitano could do nothing as she felt herself rise above New York's famous Manhattan skyline.
The mother of two claims she was the victim of one of the most compelling alien abductions in history, a case that still divides opinions three decades on.
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Now Linda's story about what she experienced on November 30, 1989, is being retold in new Netflix documentary The Manhattan Alien Abduction.
The film uses archived footage and new interviews to piece together her extraordinary tale.
In the documentary, Linda harks back to the moment she believes she was whooshed into the air by a mysterious force before ending up inside an alien spaceship above New York City.
"I sense something, I feel the numbness crawl up from my toes," she says.
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"I don't wanna go but I'm going. What are they gonna do to me? They're going to kill me."
About what happened inside the otherworldly vessel, Linda recalled: "I can't move. I can't breathe. They numb you. You can't even move. You can't fight back. They are intruders."
In archive footage, Linda was shown undertaking regression hypnotherapy, conducted by UFO expert Budd Hopkins.
At the time, she said: "I'm afraid of that thing. They keep getting closer and closer and closer.
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"Oh, I feel like electricity went through me. I can't see anything."
Recalling how she was taken through the ceiling of her New York apartment, Linda told Budd: "I'm outside. It's weird. I'm standing up on nothing.
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"And they take me up, all the way up. [The alien aircraft] opens almost like a clam and then I'm inside. I'm gonna shut my eyes. I don't wanna see."
When Budd told Linda that the aliens' true intentions were to conduct experiments that would help them to produce a hybrid of humans and aliens, she went under hypnosis again to try to recall exactly what they did to her once in the aircraft.
She says: "Budd Hopkins told me what was going on. Every woman that was abducted had their ova (a female reproductive cell) taken. Budd regressed me and I remembered everything.
"Everything that happened to me when I went into the craft."
"There were these creatures around me and they were examining my stomach. One of them came after me with a needle the length of a turkey baster. That isn't friendly.
"I didn't want to believe that I was a lab rat being experimented on. But after a while, I just couldn't deny it anymore."
Although Budd initially wondered why no witnesses saw Linda levitating through Manhattan, his wishes were soon granted when 23 people came forward to corroborate her story.
One of them was a delivery man for the New York Post. In the documentary, he describes what he saw.
"I'd been working at the New York Post, delivering newspapers out in Queens for over 20 years. And on the way back, I could take the bridge.
"I was confronted with a blackout. The truck dying and all of a sudden, I saw a bunch of lights in front of me. I didn't know what I was looking at. And then I saw what it was.
I didn't want to believe that I was a lab rat being experimented on. But after a while, I just couldn't deny it anymore
Linda Napolitano
"It scared the heck out of me. And I saw a woman coming out a window and just disappear. I realised exactly what I saw and I could not just let it go.
"Who was the woman in the white gown? I don't know what the big secret is. I don't know why they're keeping it from the public. But we're not alone."
Nose job
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In her initial letter to Budd, Linda explained the encounter: "I got into bed. I closed my eyes. I felt that I had a dream. I was levitating in the air. It was a very strange feeling.
"The following morning, I found myself lying on the grass waking up and not knowing where I was. I had a very bad nosebleed. The blood was streaming out of one nostril, and it was the right side.
"It tasted sort of metallic." Linda added: "Whatever happened to me, I wouldn't wish it on a cockroach."
But soon afterward, Linda noticed that her nose looked crooked, leading to shocking discovery by doctors.
She explains: "It terrified me. I thought it could be a tumour. And it's right in the middle of my face. I told my husband all about it. He didn't like it. Not at all.
I had this awful feeling the aliens were back. Only this time, they had come back for my family
Linda
"He said listen to me, 'You need to get your nose X-rayed' and so that's what I did.
"I went to the doctor. He examined me, and he says, 'You had nose surgery'. On the wall of my nose. So I said I never had surgery before. He says 'You have a scar'.
"So I said maybe I scratched it. He says, 'No, the scar was made with a scalpel.' It scared the s*** out of me. I looked at the X-ray, and I said what is that?
"Did one of those buggers put a contraption up my nose? So then I called Budd Hopkins. He looked at it for a long while."
When Budd saw the X-ray, he called Linda's doctors to confirm the discovery. It was all the proof he needed to confirm his own belief that aliens had abducted Linda.
Budd went public with Linda's claims and was ridiculed by many sceptics. He even toured radio stations and TV talk shows, including Oprah, to talk about his shocking find.
Family's encounter
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Years after Linda's alleged abduction, she says she realised that the aliens were not finished with her - this time, her family was targeted.
"We all went to bed late," she explains. "Suddenly, I felt something going down my throat and I started to choke. So I went outside into the hallway.
"The whole family was standing in the living room with nosebleeds. I had this awful feeling the aliens were back. Only this time, they had come back for my family."
Appearing in the documentary with a hidden identity, son Johnny recalls his encounter with the UFOs.
He says: "It's got to be the most terrifying and hopeless thing that I've ever felt. So I was very reluctant to even start talking about this again. It's been over 30 years since I sat down and seriously talked about this to anyone but my therapist.
"I just try to erase it from my life. It happened a long time ago. I was quite young. Obviously, as a kid, you don't know what to think.
It tasted sort of metallic. Whatever happened to me, I wouldn't wish it on a cockroach
Linda
"You hope and pray it's a nightmare. But the better part of me knows that it was a real experience. Mum was in the kitchen - I don't know what she was doing.
"I looked out the window, and the next thing I remember was turning around. I remember seeing three beings in the living room. The most vivid memory is calling out to my mum for help and it was almost as if she was standing still.
"She wasn't moving. She wasn't responding and I know I was screaming as loud as I could. It was almost as if she wasn't there. It was an image of her.
"I know it was terrifying for me and I can only imagine the terror and anger that my mum felt. I know my mum better than anyone else and I will tell you right now - there's no way I believe she would want to make anything like this up.
"From what I'm told, (there are) a lot of witnesses. So she either planted a seed in all those people's heads and mine or this is a real experience.
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"So I can't imagine that she would want to perpetuate something involving so much terror and agony."
Childhood contact
According to Linda, her experiences with UFOs began when she was much younger. The Italian-American noticed that she and her sister could see things but had no idea what they were.
"My grandmother had something strange happen to her," she says in the documentary. "She used to see spirits walking around her house. And then I started having experiences, and my sister too.
"We started to see things in the apartment. It was frightening. At first, my parents used to say to my sister and I, 'Oh, you must have had a bad dream.'
I didn't know what was fantasy. It was beyond bizarre. But was there any evidence that this thing had actually happened?
Carol Rainey
"But we knew we weren't dreaming. It was too real. And then of course my parents started to see what we were seeing and that was a different story.
"And that's when she decided to have the priest come and bless the home. And so that's what she did but it never worked because we kept seeing them."
When asked about what she was seeing, Linda responds: "Aliens. I'm even almost embarrassed to say that. It sounds so ridiculous. But I didn't know at that time that's what they were. I thought they were ghosts.
Hoax claims
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Although Linda's case gripped Budd and convinced him that aliens abducted her, there was scepticism from an unlikely source - Carol Rainey, Budd's wife.
The filmmaker was intrigued by her husband's UFO work and picked up her equipment to make a documentary. Carol's archive footage is used throughout the documentary.
When she first met Linda, she was taken by her personality and began a friendship.
She explains: "Budd was very, very taken with Linda. He described her as being an attractive woman in her forties, who was a wife and a mother. Italian American, very.
"He believed that she was very, very credible and that she had been traumatised. We met for tea and we just chatted for a while and I think we liked each other.
"Linda was a natural in front of the camera. She enjoyed it. She played to the camera. You know, had her hair just right and clothes just right.
"She was spunky. She had spirit. In that way, she was a good subject."
Four shocking UFO abductions from the UK
ALIENS have fascinated the world for decades and while many think of notorious sites like Area 51, some have happened a little closer to home.
The UK has seen numerous intriguing alien abduction cases, where alleged victims recount bizarre encounters, periods of lost time, and unsettling experiences.
As it stands, Grimsby is the UK’s most popular UFO hotspot with 70 years of reported cases.
From shocking tales involving police and ordinary citizens, these eerie incidents continue to captivate and split opinions about the existence of aliens.
Here are some of them:
- Alan Godfrey - In 1980, the police officer was investigating reports of missing cattle when he saw a bright light hovering over the road. He claims as he tried to approach it, he experienced a lapse in memory. He said he was taken aboard the craft and was medically examined by aliens.
- Garry Wood and Colin Wright - In 1992, Garry, an ambulance technician, and his friend Colin experienced a disturbing encounter on the A70 near Glasgow. A black object dropped a curtain of white light in front of their van, causing them to black out. They awoke an hour later, disoriented and facing the opposite direction. Under hypnosis, both recounted being taken aboard a ship and enduring painful examinations. The Ministry of Defence later documented this incident.
- Hilary Porter - Welsh woman Hilary Porter claimed repeated alien abductions throughout her life, with her first memory at age five. She described encountering a reptilian creature, which took her aboard a disc-shaped craft, where she experienced painful procedures. Hilary believes her abductions began even earlier, as she mysteriously vanished from her garden as a toddler. She asserts that these abductions have continued consistently into her adulthood.
- Philip and Ronald Kinsella - The twins from Kempston, Beds., claimed they've had four alien encounters. Philip said he was abducted by aliens in 1989. He said: “I remember sitting in my home and the atmosphere changed and it became static. The hairs on my back went up and Ronnie went into a trance — he froze and raised his head up to the ceiling." He claimed he was then examined by “reptilian” aliens on board a spaceship.
Carol was not completely sold despite her husband's firm belief in Linda's story. She says: "I didn't know what to believe. I didn't know what was real.
"I didn't know what was fantasy. It was beyond bizarre. But was there any evidence that this thing had actually happened?"
It wasn't until after Linda's second hypnotherapy session that Carol's suspicion went into overdrive. Upon seeing other sessions conducted by Budd, Carol felt something did not add up.
"Budd was wiping his eyes in full understanding of what Linda talked about. That the aliens were also traumatising her children and they were both weeping", she remembers.
"I became concerned that he was so emotionally attached. My alarm bells went off. I felt that Budd risked losing his objectivity.
"I had access to all of Budd's original source material so I started building a library of hypnosis sessions that Budd was doing with people.
"When I would hear people go under hypnosis, they would sound like they were a little drunk and they were struggling to pull it all together.
I had to try to protect other people from being tormented this way. I was literally sick of the whole business
Carol
"But when Linda was hypnotised, she didn't sound the way the others did when they were deep down. She had a clear coherent narrative. I just didn't believe that she was under hypnosis."
Carol also believes that Linda may have roped her son Johnny into her alleged hoax.
"I listened to the phone call that Budd had with her son Johnny and I could hear are a couple of points where he pauses and you're not sure why", she says.
"She could have coached him to get aligned with her own story. I thought Linda was going to be the case of the century. But was I actually making a film about an extremely practised hoax?
"Did Linda convince her son he had been abducted by aliens? You don't lie about things like that to children. It would have been traumatising for him.
"By going out and speaking about it, Budd had backed himself into a corner. Because if it wasn't true, it would be the end of his career as a UFO investigator."
Bizarre events
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After Linda's alleged encounter with the aliens, a series of bizarre events convinced Carol and many others that it was all a scam.
Linda claimed that she got a visit from two menacing government officials who wanted to know about her abduction.
She also claimed that they once tried to kidnap her to determine whether she was half-alien. She says they only let her go when she threatened them with a gun.
One of the most shocking claims was that the two men, identified only as Richard and Dan, were in the security detail of former United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
In a letter, the men claimed they witnessed Linda's alien abduction while working. They also alleged that the diplomat also saw Linda floating through the air.
To prove her theory about the hoax, Carol began to go through several of Budd's documents. She even discovered a letter apparently written by the UN boss confirming that he witnessed the abduction.
Carol says: "When I saw the handwriting on the envelope, I just wondered if the handwriting matched Linda's." She then took it to a forensic examiner, who determined it was indeed Linda's.
She is a b***h. She used my case and me and my family as a tool to get even with Budd.
Linda
Carol adds: "Richard is an invention of Linda's, and so is Dan. They were both actors. And de Cuellar is brought in as the credibility character."
Despite his best efforts, Budd never met Dan and Richard, and de Cuellar never confirmed that he witnessed the abduction.
Carol believes Linda learned about the elements of alien abduction by reading Budd's books and through her invitation to support groups.
"I almost had a reluctant admiration for Linda for doing that, except for the fact that I was really p***ed that she made a fool out of my husband", she says.
But Carol says her investigations revealed that not only was Budd misled, he was also an active participant.
She explains: "I don't know if it was through the Linda case or earlier than that. I couldn't respect what I heard him do to people who were vulnerable.
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"I had to try to protect other people from being tormented this way. I was literally sick of the whole business."
Carol wrote an essay online discrediting her husband's work and rubbishing Linda's claims of being abducted. As a result, Budd's book about the case and a potential movie deal were scrapped. He died in in 2011.
This infuriated Linda. Denying Carol's claims, she says in the film: "She is a b****. She used my case and me and my family as a tool to get even with Budd."
She adds: "She tried to hurt a lot of people" before saying: "Well Carol Rainey, no one believes you. And no one believes you because you're a liar.
"And it's as simple as that. Everyone has your number. Your ex-husband has been dead for 12, 13 years. And it wasn't enough for you to... attempt to ruin his reputation.
"But you can't. All you've succeeded in doing was to discredit yourself."
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Then in a final and stern word of caution to Carol, Linda says: "It's best not to mess with Linda or her family. Because there'll be no warning."
The Manhattan Alien Abduction is available to stream on Netflix from November 30, 2024.
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