The designs of these abductions range anywhere from MKULTRA mind control experiments and microwave implants, to create perfect spies and assassins, genetic alteration, as well as human cloning. And of course, any ethically dubious scientific experiment that would cause outrage if made pubic.

It's quite hard to explain in a concise way, and the available information is so clouded and disparate it's an uphill battle to prove anything conclusively. The authors do go out of their way to make clear that much of what is written is pure speculation and ought not to be taken as fact.

And that is my main issue with the book. The thesis hinges upon self-reported alien abductees not being schizophrenic and insane. To counter this, Lammer tracks independent reports with general trends. For example, unmarked black helicopters began appearing in accounts during the late 60s and early 70s, all near military air bases, and similar accounts of victims seeing people floating in fluid-filled tubes. There are quite a few more I can't be bothered to write down, but the same sorts of aliens and the same sort of military personnel appear often.

The CIA developed methods to delete memories and implant false ones (which is not a conspiracy theory, but rather a proven fact) and (again, proven fact) had a great enthusiasm for LSD experimentation. Many of the victims reported symptoms which are eerily similar to the side effects produced by the methods described above.

The US military was experimenting with brain implants, too, which commonly appear in the reports by abductees. Importantly, there are actual people who have been unwittingly inserted with implants, such as Robert Naslund.

I think it would have been useful to look into the cultural aspect of this phenomena. People floating in test tubes can be traced back to the 1930s Frankenstein film, so it has been in the cultural consciousness for a while. Interestingly, though, Lammer presents a theory that these hallucinations come from natal memories of the womb and birthing process, which I didn't find particularly convincing.

Lammer does prove that the US military was researching mind control, cloning and brain implants, and that they were in fact carrying out these experiments "in the field" (on US citizens without consent), but as I said before, linking these to alien abductions is a tough sell without more information. Regardless a very interesting book.