The Steve Kilburn Alien Abduction

(As heard in the Weird Darkness episode, “Unveiled Under Hypnosis: The Alien Secrets of Steve Kilburn” from July 30, 2024.)

It was only by a strange sense of foreboding that would grip Steve Kilburn whenever he passed or even just thought about one particular stretch of Maryland road that memories of his alien abduction began to surface. This alien emotion eventually led him to speak with UFO researcher Budd Hopkins. When Kilburn underwent hypnotic regression in an attempt to get further clarification on where this shadow of dread was coming from, it revealed that something utterly bizarre had happened there years back.

Steven not only saw a weird object that night during the early ’70s while driving back home, but he was also visited by strange beings who eventually got him on board. Even worse, he would be subjected to medical procedures for the better part of a year. The specifics that would later come to light through regressive hypnosis wouldn’t just offer insight into an encounter Stephen Kilburn experienced—a number of these precise details are present in universal human stories about alien abduction, adding credibility to his account.

This is yet another case from the files of Budd Hopkins, described in great detail by authors with a contemporary perspective who run through details not included elsewhere. It can be read about at length in *Missing Time: A Documented Study Of UFO Abductions*. This, as we will see, is one of the most complex and nuanced cases in history.

When Steven Kilburn first mentioned to Budd Hopkins this peculiar sensation troubling him, they were no strangers. Through his friendship with Bloecher, another Fortean Society member, Kilburn attended more than one meeting of UFO buffs at Hopkins’ New York studio apartment — gatherings arranged and hosted by the two researchers.

In *Missing Time*, Hopkins said that after a meeting, where everybody was getting their things together and preparing to leave, Kilburn went up and said, “Something might have happened to me in college.” He countered with, “there was probably nothing to it,” but mentioned one particular stretch of road he had to drive on whenever he visited his girlfriend.

Hopkins asked if Kilburn could remember any UFO sighting connected with the road in question, to which Kilburn replied that he didn’t recall “anything particular.” However, he always had a sense that “something happened to me one time when I was driving home.” That was when Kilburn mentioned that he would be interested in trying hypnotic regression to see if there was something more to discover.

The two let the matter lie for a while, but one day Hopkins called Bloecher and told him about his chat with Kilburn, confiding that he suspected there was more to those foreboding premonitions. They eventually talked with psychologist Dr. Girard Franklin, who agreed to do the session. What they discovered would be astonishing for all involved.

The session took place in May 1978 at Dr. Franklin’s office in downtown Manhattan, several weeks after Kilburn revealed his doubts to Hopkins about the strange events that occurred that night in 1973.

Steven explained that when he lived in Baltimore before moving to New York, his girlfriend lived six miles away in Frederick. He remembered making the drive to see her, occasionally driving west along Route 40. “Ten or fifteen miles of that road is completely empty,” he said. He added that he often left his girlfriend’s house very late, and this part of the road was dark and seemingly endless.

One night, about a year into doing this drive, he was driving from Frederick to Maryland. Somewhere between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., “I couldn’t remember if I had actually seen something [high up], but I felt it the first time.” He added that all of a sudden, he felt weird and didn’t know why, noting: “That feeling someone is watching you when you wake from sleep.” Ultimately, he said that for some reason, the experience seemed too weird to him or even weirder “going to be happening.”

After that, every time Steven drove down that road, he felt the same way. As years passed, Steven tried hard to forget the event. But every once in a while, he would wonder if the impossible had actually happened that night between Frederick and Baltimore.

Dr. Franklin posed more questions about the night in question, attempting to access any memories Steven could recall and what those recollections did for him before hypnotizing him. These memories were often nebulous at best. He remembered, for instance, staring at the dashboard during that particular drive but had no idea why. Then more memories were shared.

He remembered walking in front of his car after it had been pulled over on the side of the road. He saw light emanating, which he figured was from his car but couldn’t be sure. He said he could not remember how he got outside the car but distinctly felt like he was out of the car while it was stopped behind him.

When Dr. Franklin asked what he was thinking when this occurred, Steven replied that he remembered feeling scared, so much so that he felt shivers down his spine. He added that he felt “trapped” in his car and unable to go faster.

As he continued to talk, flashing memories seemed to take over his thoughts. He remembered glancing at the rearview mirror as if searching for someone—or something—tracking him. Even more troubling was the sensation that someone or something else had power over him.

At this point, Dr. Franklin called for Steven to be hypnotized, and the true revelations began.

Dr. Franklin regressed Steven to that evening when these strange feelings had crept in. He remembered that it was getting dark, which added to his sense of sleepiness. He opened the window to bring fresh air into the cabin as he tried, unsuccessfully, to regain his alertness. Suddenly, the car stopped as he leaned in to examine what was on the dashboard. He was completely lost and did not know what to do.

He then exited the car and glanced at a metal fence some yards away. He stopped there, continued silence as he was on the couch in his office. To all who were watching, he looked scared to death. He screamed, “On my shoulder … a clamp…pain and I cannot move!”

The whole event veered into the surreal during that session. Dr. Franklin tried to hush Steven as a recorded incoming message clicked on his answering machine. The click prompted Steven to “literally almost jump off the couch.” It was obvious that he had plunged into a massive state of fear and panic.

At last, Dr. Franklin was able to calm him down enough for Bloecher to start asking Steven questions.

Bloecher then asked him what was on his shoulder. Steven said it looked like a “big wrench” and seemed to be coming from behind him, although he wasn’t sure of that. He went on to say that this wrench-like item lifted him and landed about a foot on either side of his chest and back.

Then, he remembered seeing a light. Bloecher asked if that light was from his car, and Steven immediately said, “No, there’s something else you’re not seeing behind the fence.” He then mumbled: “…dressed in black…can’t see their faces…more than two…three or more…”

He asked if the figures he saw were behind the fence. Steven replied affirmatively, saying that they were. He began to panic again, saying over and over, “I don’t know what’s going to happen!” He paused and then said, “There’s someone coming towards me.”

While this was going on, Steven said he heard some type of noise. He had no idea whether it was the sound of them inhaling or some kind of sliding noise. Bloecher requested that he focus on the sound more, but instead of focusing, Steven began talking about what was occurring. He insisted that his sides and back were hurting, and it felt as though something had been twisting him towards the road.

It was then that Steven’s memories started to blend together. He remembered being maybe six feet away from the car, and now it was light out. Bloecher could hardly tell if it was day or not due to all the bright lights. Steven exclaimed in confusion: “Day… but now it’s night!”

Steven then described when one of the two figures that came out from behind or over the fence was now on his right. When ordered to describe the figure, Steven managed to say it was “very white” and later told investigators he did not want to look. Bloecher asked Steven whether the figure was as big as he was, and his answer was it’s ‘almost our size,’ only a little smaller. He added that its “neck and face were very white” with no hair above the neck.

Steven said the figure kept flickering in and out of sight, then declared, “He ain’t one of us,” adding, “Every time I see him, it gives me a fright!” This was followed by an account of something he said or did next. He put it this way: “…They want something from me. I don’t know what they want…”

At this stage, it was agreed to conclude the session and bring Steven out of the hypnotic state. He was shaken by the revelations, but it seemed Steven had finally found some peace knowing they were starting to uncover the layers from years earlier. A few months later, he’d repeat the process for another session that showed more results than anyone would have expected.

Seven months after the first session, Steven was willing to undergo a second hypnosis session in 1978. This time, the session was conducted by Dr. Aphrodite Clamar, who had worked with Hopkins before on an alien abduction case.

Once more, Dr. Clamar brought Steven back to that trip in 1973. He remembered that he was driving and feeling tired and sleepy. He said it was late, but when Dr. Clamar asked him to look at the time on the dashboard, he told her it wasn’t working. He said he briefly turned on the light in his car to check his watch, then looked back at the road and suddenly woke up. He remarked he had momentarily driven onto the shoulder, which woke him up.

He was now driving down a hill and began to accelerate. At that point, he leaned forward toward the dashboard, maybe to adjust his seat. As he did so, a luminous light shined from somewhere. He wondered why there were no other cars around.

The car then abruptly “turned violently” and snapped to the right. “Like a giant magnet just pulled it right to the right!” Steven said.

The next thing he knew, the car came to a halt, and out of nowhere, he felt an intense sensation that someone was watching him from behind. He looked in the mirror, but there was no reflection. The car stopped, and Steven was asking himself why he had even pulled over in the first place. The situation, which he found beyond confusing, opened up before him.

As he started to scan the area, his eyes landed on a big tree and a fence not too far away. He was “out of the car” and staring at the fence.

Surprised, he wondered whether or not another vehicle was driving by on the road surrounding him. It was only then, when he looked down, that he noticed that though his car had pulled off the road, it still was on “something solid,” as if it was the future location of a new street.

He heard an alien noise by the fence or just something wind-borne. He sat in front of the car and looked into the fence. All at once, the feeling hit him that he was not supposed to look that way toward the fence. Only then did his memory of what had brought him there come rushing back.

He said when he was going downhill, he saw “two lights in the sky” and leaned forward to get a better look at them. He first thought it could just be a reflection in the car window, so he turned on the light inside to check if they were gone — but they weren’t. He then deactivated the interior lights and still stared at the lights. He said, “Look at it go right there; it’s going way off to the right, up in the lights, over the highway and up with those trees.”

At this point, he was completely befuddled as to what the object could be, saying it looked like “two light beams, kind of worked diagonally,” one off to his right and another in the lower left. He said there were “lights and a shadow of something” behind the lights, indicating they may have been some sort of opaque object.

The lights kept moving and flew toward the vegetation on his right. He went back the way he came down the road, and as soon as he got to where it looked like the object had landed, his car started turning right. We can suspect that something else was pulling him. He said, “I wasn’t really that interested in going over there,” but the car made a right turn as if it had been yanked by some malevolent force.

He remembered looking at the fence from outside of the car. He watched the fence a few more seconds and then just found himself back in his car, driving home. He said that when he thought of this, “…I just don’t want to remember. I shouldn’t remember!”

Dr. Clamar asked him what he meant by this. His reply: “I know I’m not! It’s really serious! I might die. I mean, I know I won’t, if I remember, but I feel really, really afraid to see…”

Finally, Dr. Clamar brought him back to the point where he was outside his car staring at the chain-link fence and feeling nauseous all over again. He said he felt the “sense of things standing around him” and that something was going on near the fence. He remembered seeing a light on the regular that lit up his surroundings.

Then suddenly, he was faced with three grotesque figures before him. He could not say what made him so sure of it, but he knew one among them was overseeing the others. He said one of them was doing something behind him, and he believed they were “suspicious” about him. At that moment, he remembered the sight and sound of leather. Now, he could see that beyond their clothing—or whatever they were wearing—had a texture reminiscent of leather. And the material covered their arms and hands.

Looking back toward the figures, he continued. He said: “…I can see the faces, and they are white… chalky … like they are made out of rubber, or,… not rubber…. something…. only really a dull finish…”

One of them reached out and touched him. What struck him was that the moment one of those figures touched him, he felt pain. In addition to the hurt, he felt a sense of puzzlement from them. He said the figure in front of him was “motioning to the others” with his arm. He believed it had some sort of suit. Is it part of him or is it a suit? It does not appear to be skin.

He also described the figure’s rubbery fingers as “white plastic tubes” which seemed shiny.

He added that one of the figures appeared to be digging behind him while the one in front (the leader) was encouraging it to speed up. Although he couldn’t make out the figure behind him very well, it appeared more like it was poking around in the dirt than actually digging. He felt that this figure was not particularly strong.

Steven realized there were a few other figures he had not seen previously, digging near the first one. They were identical to the others and also watched as the figure behind Steven continued to fill in the “grayish” soil.

As Steven recounted the events, he seemed to lose any sense of fear: at one point, “the troubled tone [vanished] entirely,” and his speech was even “punctuated by small, ironic chuckles.” Hopkins realized he was “in some manner artificially calmed,” apparently by the figure on his left. We remember that Steven felt a bump in his hand as soon as he noticed it. What kind of narcotic was the figure injecting into him—one to turn the hysterical Steven calm, even serene?

Due to this newfound calmness, Steven let more information about his surreal environment emerge. He remembered, for instance, when his fear of the fast-moving vehicle just stopped, and he looked around to see if any more cars were coming from a distance (none).

He then turned his gaze towards the figures in front of him—a figure he called “the boss”—and, more specifically, at the eyes. They were “really shiny,” he remembered, quite large and devoid of pupils. He said the figure’s head was not roundish but more like “an upside-down teardrop” and had what looked like a “big, huge rounded bar across it.”

He followed this up by stating, “He looked like he wasn’t alive,” and that “he was very wooden and awkward to be there.” Steven said that while no communication from the figure had been made, it was “clear” to him that it hoped simply to leave. Steven remembered getting the sense the figure “wants me to say something or help him out or whatever”—but he did not understand what.

He later said he felt compelled by the figures, that they “could make me do whatever” they wanted to control him. He explained that he saw them kind of “communicate with each other, but they are not talking,” or at least nothing audible. Dr. Clamar replied, “Do you think they were speaking in their minds?” to which Steven responded that it appeared so because there was no doubt about what they were talking about.

He further said that there was a common thread among them as they engaged in some kind of argument or dispute, saying the leader wanted something while another didn’t. Steven got the impression they were arguing over where to dig, but he wasn’t sure.

Steven refocused his view toward the light penetrating the walls from behind, revealing silhouettes with a strong tang of musty, fiery old smell, finally putting a face to everything he saw. He looked back down at the eyes and said they were ‘so black’ and bottomless, like a liquid but fitting perfectly.

Not content with being perceived as uncomfortable, the figure shifted slightly, allowing Steven to realize it moved like “my knees hurt really bad,” hobbling clearly in discomfort. The figure dragged its feet a little. Steven described the boots, but there was no mention of feet.

He further detailed that the feet were shaped like cat’s eyes—had no toes, and pointed frontwards or backwards. He observed that the figure’s ankles, legs, and arms were very long and slender. He stared into the mouthless face and realized for the first time there were no ears, only a slit where a mouth would be. He pointed out that the figure never expressed any emotion.

The figure’s eyes trailed behind Steven, where the blinding light originated. Steven heard what sounded like something coming down, causing shadows to shift.

At this time, unable to guide his attention away from the falling object, Steven again saw what had seemed like “digging” behind, experiencing something like two forms of attack: one in front and another from behind. Hopkins described it as “so obvious that Steven was holding back from getting further into his story,” the kind of reflex we all possess. This might suggest something had been implanted in his mind to keep him from continuing even under hypnosis.

It would take almost two years before Steven agreed to be hypnotized once more. By then, he remembered that some physical examination had been made after an object came out of the sky. Due to the nature of what this involved, he resisted more regression sessions. Nonetheless, when the session resumed in February 1979 and drew a blank, another session two years later, presided over by Dr. Clamar, would reveal much more about this bizarre encounter with apparent alien entities.

Steven was directed in the sessions by Dr. Clamar to walk back to his BMW, where the figure (the leader) was waiting outside. He remembered what happened after the object fell from above behind him. He said, “This long clamp kind of thing,” seemingly from nowhere, grabbed him around the shoulder.” He described: “…it has a joint in the center like an elbow, one almost shaped like part of an arm around my shoulder. And I catch it standing behind me, to my right side. It is related to it…I have no clue what this can be…it seems like a frisbee!”

He went on to say that this particular saucer was “whitish” and looked like it was standing upright from some sort of platform. He felt the vice around his lower back. The figure then started waving its arms, and the clamp moved him in a direction that turned his back to them. He wasn’t quite sure what he saw, but it was completely dark.

Next, he saw a ramp, and it was clear the figure was trying to lure him inside.

He then said he could hear a weird noise that sounded like it was coming from the object, “it sounds like vibrating,” but stationary in one place. It then clamped down on his shoulder and shoved him toward the object.

The next thing he knew, he was moving along a tunnel-like walkway and realized he was actually walking. The clamp had vanished, and the figure was walking next to him. Moving into the familiar ‘Mass Abduction’ sequence, he found himself being guided through a door into another white room, well illuminated with the same almost “all-white” light. Despite the light, it didn’t seem to come from any real source of illumination—it was as if the very walls were themselves luminescent.

He remembered something going into his back and then suddenly being on the table in the middle of the room. At this moment, he saw that the walls were curved with no straight lines. He could make out more of the peculiar figures in the room; two were near him, and several others were against one wall.

While looking around and wondering how everything “had this metallic glow to it,” including himself, he noticed he was no longer wearing his clothes but some sort of crisscross type adult diaper. A gadget he described as “like a fancy ray gun,” with a needle attachment, descended from overhead. It started to spin on its own—it appeared that no one was controlling it. It stopped when its needle was right on top of him. He could not see it any longer, but he immediately felt something touch his back and imagined the needle had stuck him.

At the same time, Steven noticed that the person who showed him in was standing in a corner of the room, watching everything unfold.

During the exam, he was instructed to lay on his back, each side, and then his front. By the time he had done so, they had likely run a “full body sweep” with various devices placed on or around him. Despite the surreal circumstances, he managed to stay calm, almost as if a sedative was already in his bloodstream. There was something about the feeling of being unable to move yet at peace that made him fall asleep.

At this juncture, the regression session ended, and Steven emerged from hypnosis.

In the days that followed, Steven remembered additional minor details that were common in other alleged alien abduction scenarios. He recalled how the table didn’t just sit in the middle of the room but seemed to “grow” out of the floor with no seams or bolts visible, as if carved from the same material.

Many of the other devices used during these procedures were no different—they either emerged from the floor or hung down from the ceiling and even sidewalls as integral parts rather than separate apparatus.

There were probably more memories still buried deep in Steven’s unconscious, but he had found the key to the mystery that had cornered him for so long. Something very strange and unusual had happened.

According to Hopkins, certain elements of Steven’s story could only be validated by other documented cases of alien abduction. Such specifics as the texture of their skin (weird, like warm putty) and the description from Travis Walton of his purported captors, which took place a little over two years after Steven’s experience.

Walton not only said the creatures were about Steven’s size (5′ tall), but also described their “marshmallow-white flesh” with no fingernails on their fingers and “spotless” hands with “bare, smooth” non-wrinkled fingers. Steven described the hands similarly, saying, “And all those fingers were full-on beautiful.”

Among other incidents, Hopkins mentioned several others dating back to 1957 where marshmallow-like skin (or color and consistency) was noted, and strange hands were described.

The detail about substances apparently administered to pacify Steven also recurs in many alien abduction encounters, as does Steven’s strong feeling that he shouldn’t remember and that his memory was deliberately abolished. The abductors in numerous other alien abduction cases seem to have made a point of mental programming to ensure the victims forget the incident and resist any attempts, like hypnotic regression, to recall it.

Hopkins added that under hypnotic regression, Steven had no memory of his original sighting until the UFO re-contact session. Counterintuitive as it may seem, this is true in many other instances—an indication of intentional efforts to ensure witnesses remember nothing about their experiences.

The Steven Kilburn abduction seems to have been one of the most complicated cases (in terms of time spent pulling it out) and also one that appeared realistic. After the third and final hypnotic session with Steven, Hopkins called neurosurgeon Dr. Paul Cooper. Steven had detailed an elaborate neurological examination administered by his alien abductors, so he asked Dr. Cooper to evaluate whether the responses mimicked what would be expected during a real exam. The findings were interesting.

Ten days after Dr. Cooper met with Steven for the final time, he spent an afternoon with him and then called Hopkins, describing it as the “spookiest two-and-a-half hours” of his life. He stated that no matter which process Steven described, his answers about what would happen to his body and where exactly it would be felt were accurate. To sum it up: short of having advanced medical knowledge, Steven described a verifiable event.

In his medical opinion, Cooper concluded that they only wanted to examine Steven: “They just wanted to see how he works.” This conclusion is one that many alien abduction researchers and investigators have reached.

(Source: Marcus Lowth, UFOInsight.com)