OPRAH WINFREY: Dr. Mack's new book is called "Abduction."
Peter, who has worked as a chef, as a hotel manager,
and as a therapist says that he was first visited by aliens
when he was eight years old.
He continues to have encounters as an adult.
And yes, he believes that beings from other planets
have been intimate with him.
So despite the fact that they have been scared out
of their minds, Peter and others we're going to hear from today
say that their lessons from the aliens
have enriched their lives in ways that they
would like to share with us.
And that is what we're here to hear from you.
You know, it's-- you know how crazy it sounds.
I said to you, as we started the show,
this is really either pretty brave of you,
or it's one of the great publicity stunts of our time.
Because to go on television and to admit
that you have been abducted, in a world
where people don't even--
most people, I think, don't accept that
as a part of reality or possible reality, puts you in a pretty--
pretty good position to be ridiculed.
Yes. [LAUGHS]
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. - And--
OPRAH WINFREY: So are you scared about that?
Are you-- - I used to be scared about it.
But it's really important now to talk about it because I realize
there's lots of people out there like myself,
who a few years ago had these experiences
and didn't know what to do with them.
Yes, but what I'm--
what I wanted to hear from you, or I'm trying to hear from you
is whether or not you understand how crazy it sounds to us?
- Absolutely. - OK.
I had to deal with my own craziness
and to think it was crazy for me to think this
before I could talk to other people about it.
So when it first happened to you,
is it something that you absolutely were sure of?
Or did it feel like a dream?
Or did you-- what?
I wasn't sure.
I had a conscious memory.
I knew something happened in the middle of the night
that I couldn't explain, that nowhere in my imagination could
I have made this up.
And I just sat with that for a long time.
You say in--
or you were quoted in Dr. Mack's book,
I remember, as saying that you always did
believe somehow in guardian angels, that as a child
you thought they were just guardian angels,
and that have always believed that you
had some way of talking to God.
That's what-- as I remember the quote.
That's not exactly the quote but something like that.
So do you remember when you were eight years old being abducted
or when you were younger feeling this whatever?
No.
I had memories when I was an adult, three or four years ago.
And then in regression is when I went back in time,
saw myself as a child having the abductions from the time I
was about eight years old.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK.
So more and more came out under regression.
OK.
Can you tell me what you remembered
when you were regressed?
I remember a light hitting me in the forehead,
aliens in my room, being lifted up into a spaceship.
OPRAH WINFREY: What did they look like?
Did they look like they did in "Close
Encounters of the Third Kind?" - No.
OPRAH WINFREY: No?
Similar, but not quite the same, not at all.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK.
I remember being-- lying on a table, lying naked,
having probes put around me, experiments done on me,
looking in my eyes, my ears.
So this happened to you, what, in the middle of the day?
Are you--
PETER FAUST: They happened at nighttime.
OK.
So when you're sleeping.
Or not sleeping.
What happened was for me, the conscious memories
that I had was in the middle of the night,
I woke up, very conscious, walked over to my living room,
saw something in the room, felt the white light,
felt the paralysis, and then I fell asleep.
Several hours later, I woke up and had
these intense emotions associated
with the experience that just--
I couldn't fathom.
Like, why was I so scared?
Why was I Terrified What was--
OPRAH WINFREY: You had a bad dream.
That's what I thought. That's what I wanted to believe.
That's what I wanted to believe for years.
And I think that's what most people want to believe until--
And why do you want to believe that?
Because--
Because I don't want to think I'm abducted by aliens.
That was the last thing I wanted in my life.
This sounds like a bad tabloid story.
It-- that's what it sounded like to me for a long time.
Uh-huh.
But Dr. Mack tape recorded several of his therapy sessions
with Peter, including one where Peter was under hypnosis.
And during these sessions, Peter recalled
his meetings with the aliens.
We have a tape made by a Canadian film
crew that shows the very first time Peter
ever heard himself under hyp--
hypnosis.
So you will see Peter's reaction listening to the tape.
You can hear Peter's voice describing on the tape
what the aliens did to him.
And you can see his reaction to hearing his own words.
Just about 42 seconds, take a look.
PETER FAUST (ON RECORDING): They're locking me up.
[PANTING] JOHN MACK (ON RECORDING): OK.
PETER FAUST (ON RECORDING): I'm in my room in Hawaii.
And they lifted me up.
[PANTING] Oh. I'm terri--
JOHN MACK (ON RECORDING): Terrified.
Uh-huh.
PETER FAUST (ON RECORDING): They were--
and then the [INAUDIBLE] went outside.
JOHN MACK (ON RECORDING): You're terrified.
Mm-hmm.
PETER FAUST (ON RECORDING): [PANTING] And I'm like this.
They've got me.
[PANTING] Oh!
Oh!
[PROLONGED MOANING] [CRYING] [PANTING]
JOHN MACK (ON RECORDING): Peter, just remember--
PETER FAUST (ON RECORDING): I don't want to go.
JOHN MACK (ON RECORDING): You're gonna be OK.
Just let it go. Let the feelings come.
You're gonna come through this fine.
PETER FAUST (ON RECORDING): OK.
JOHN MACK (ON RECORDING): You're gonna be just fine.
What was that like to hear it?
What's it like to hear it now?
It's easier now because I've heard it so many times.
But it still brings up emotions.
And that's what made me believe that something
happened because I couldn't deny my emotions.
I heard your own father didn't believe
you until he heard the tape.
Now, that is sort of what we call
one of those blood-curdling screams, that's--
you know?
Well, it's not that my father didn't believe me,
but it's just to hear the story, it's hard to fathom.
It's hard to accept.
But when he saw the tape and heard
the emotions associated with it, he
knew there was something there. And for myself, that's--
I knew there was something real there.
Dr. Mack, what does this all mean?
What is all of this--
you know, the book, where you've talked to hundreds of patients
and describe in detail what they say they have experienced.
You, with your credentials, coming from Harvard,
what do you think this all means?
Well, let me explain first why I concluded this is not
psychiatric, why these people are
not psychiatrically disturbed.
- Well-- OK. - Because I was concerned.
When I first heard about this, I thought this must be madness.
But when I heard that hundreds of thousands of people
all over the country--
OPRAH WINFREY: Why not a publicity stunt?
Why not just--
Because these people, like Peter,
I can't tell you how difficult it
is to get people to go on television to talk about this.
People are not interested in being before the public.
They're very ashamed because they get
ridiculed, humiliated about it.
This is not something anybody does--
this is not a club anybody wants to belong to.
This is not something people do because they want to be
filmed or get on publicity.
It's very difficult to get people
to come forth and acknowledge they've had these experience.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yes.
And I've-- I've read interviews of people who have
come forward years ago who wished
that they hadn't at this point.
Go ahead.
So when I heard of it, hundreds of thousands of people
all over the country from various polls, we know,
maybe even millions of people have
had very similar experiences-- they don't know each other.
The details that they're describing
were not in the media.
They have nothing to gain by it.
They feel ashamed about it.
That's number one.
What I also heard, that this was occurring
in children as young as two or three years old.
That ruled out personality explanations.
It's associated with UFOs independently
observed by witnesses, by media, by neighbors.
It's also associated with physical findings.
And I said before, that people, when examined,
are not psychiatrically disturbed.
So the only thing that behaves like that is real experience.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, you say-- - Dreams do not behave--
--that's trauma-- trauma, that it's trauma.
JOHN MACK: It's traumatic. - Yeah.
Real experiences are the only thing that occurs like that.
Psychosis isn't like that.
Madness is not like that.
Dreams are not like that.
Fantasy is not like that.
Now, if these are real experiences, what is going on?
What's the source of these experiences?
Yeah, that's the question.
What's going on?