DOCTOR SAYS ALIENS TOOK HER ON UFO
By: David A. Maurer
of The Progress Staff
What dr. rauni-leena luukanen saw outside her living room window,
nearly four years ago, scared her more than death threats and angry
soldiers waving machine guns at her.
the sight she now refers to "as the shock of my life," occurred during
august 1986. she and a friend were enjoying a quiet evening fogether at
her home on the outskirts of rovaniemi, lapland.
"in an open field, about 100 meters from my home, i saw a large craft,
illuminated in a yellow glow, hovering about 20 or 30 meters above the
ground," she said. "i yelled for my friend to look, and she saw it,
too." this sighting and the subsequent events that follow have altered
luukanen's entire perception of the world, she said.
a physician, luukanen served as the chief medical officer in lapland
for 13 years. she describes herself as a "very down to earth, no-
nosense-type person."
"in my medical practice, i've worked with the boat people in malaysia
and had machine guns pointed at me and have been threatened with
death," said luukanen during a visit to a friend in charlottesville
before attending a conference on unidentified flying objects in
blacksburg.
"but, i have never been so terribly shocked and scared before in my
life," she said. "i think i got so frightened because, when i saw it, i
knew that i was seeing something from another world or dimension. it
was very big, about one hundred meters in diameter.
"it stayed in one place hovering for perhaps fifteen minutes. after it
was gone, i convinced myself that it was the moon or something, and i
tried to forget about it."
before the sighting, luukanen said she was as skeptical as most people
when it comes to the subject of ufos. but, the following day, she found
it hard to rationalize what she saw.
"the newspaper had a story about the sighting the night before and
about 100 other people had seen it," luukanen said. "two days later,
officials at the local air force base said that it had been a soviet
rocket. i really got scared then because a rocket doesn't hover for
fifteen minutes."
recorded sightings of ufos go back thousands of years, but the modern
era of ufo sightings is considered to have began on june 24, 1947. on
that date businessman and pilot, kenneth arnold, from boise, idaho,
reported seeing a formation of nine objects flying at a high speed
around the peaks of the cascade mountains in washinton state.
he described them as "shiny, disc-shaped craft," and said he clocked
their speed at about 1,350 mph. this was months before air force pilot
chuck yeager would break the sound barrier at a mere 741.8 mph.
when arnold described what he saw to reporters: "they flew like a
saucer would if you skipped it across water," he inadvertently coined
the now-common term for ufos-"flying saucers."
during the following weeks, scores of other sightings were reported,
not only by ordinary people, but military and civilian airline4 pilots
as well. these events received heavy coverage in the media and perhaps
fueled the imaginations of many who reported sightings during the
ensuing weeks.
nonetheless, in january of 1948, the u.s. air force began a study on
ufos that would last for 22 years. the first name for the investigation
was "project sign." the name was changed to "project grudge," and
finally to "project blue book."
by the time the investigative project officially ended in december
1969,, it had 12,783 cases of ufo incidents on file. of these, air
force officials said 701 couldn't be explained.
even more disturbing than seeing a ufo is being taken aboard one. in
an apparently recent phenomenon, people report that they have been
abducted by alien beings and taken onto ufos. luukanen numbers herself
among the hundreds of individuals who say they've been abducted by
beings from another planet.
the conference that brought luukanen to virginia was held in
blacksburg recently and it dealt with these alleged abductions. the
first conference of this kind was held in connecticut in may of 1989.
the blacksburg conference was called treat ii-treatment and research
on experienced anomalous trauma. attendance was by invitation only and
was said to include physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists and ufo
experts, among others.
"in november, 1986, i was attending the annual parapsycology
conference in basel, switzerland," luukanen said. "during one of the
meetings, a large group of us were hypnotized, and as soon as i went
into a hypnotic state, i saw the sky and a ufo coming toward me.
"i was totally surprised by this, and didn't know what it meant. i
didn't tell anyone about it because it just seemed too bizarre.
"that afternoon we were hypnotized abain, and it began to happen all
over," luukanen said. "after the second time, i told the whole group
and they were as surprised as i was."
luukanen said after these two initial revelations, she underwent other
hypnosis sessions in which she remembered the events in more details.
"i was on a table like the type you will find in operating rooms,"
luukanen said. "there were three or four little ones around the table,
and they looked to be about one meter high. they had no hair, big eyes
and a grayish brown skin or covering like a diver's suit.
"i was paralyzed, but i could think and communicate telepathically
with them," she said. "they worked with hazy instruments that put off a
white beam of light and also a bluish violet color. at one point, they
took a long needle-like instrument and inserted it in my lower abdomen.
as a doctor, i know where they put it would give them access to my
ovaries."
luukanen said after she remembered her ordeal, she found a small scar
she believes was caused by the needle. she said the aliens didn't
appear to express any emotions and that they went about their task with
a detachment that reminded her of dissecting rats in medical school.
"my conviction is that they don't want to harm us or upset us
psychologically," luukanen said. "i think that's why the memory of the
episode is taken away. but when most people remember, it's very
traumatic. one of the main purposes of the conference is to learn how
to treat and deal with these people who have been abducted."
luukanen said she is convinced that what she said happened to her
really did. she said her gut feeling is the earth is being prepared to
be taken into the largercommunity of the universe.
"i have a feeling of responsibility now to inform people that we are
not alone in the universe," luukanen said. "the question in my mind is
not whether or not they exist, but "how do we deal with them?"