The Linda Cortile Abduction Case
It is not often that an alleged alien abduction case becomes the subject of a legal battle but that is exactly what has happened with the famous, or infamous, Linda Cortile (real name Napolitano) abduction story that occurred in November 1989, which in ufology circles is generally known as the “The Manhattan Alien Abduction” or “The Brooklyn Bridge Case”. “Some regard it as one of the most important UFO cases of the 20th century but to others it is highly controversial and even suspicious. Respected and experienced UFO researcher, Budd Hopkins, was brought in to investigate the case and he would later write a best selling book about it .
Budd Hopkins and Linda Cortile
The facts, for those unfamiliar with the case, are:
In the early hours of 30th November 1989, Cortile awoke in her apartment in Manhattan, New York. At the bottom of her bed, a figure stood, watching her. All windows and doors to her apartment were locked. The next thing she knew, she was in an examination room with several of the strange creatures around a table upon which she lay. One of the creatures prodded her with 'a needle the length of a turkey baster'. She knew these creatures were the “grays” from the descriptions of others. Then, she was back in her room. All the while, her husband Steve remained asleep.
However, under hypnotic regression, a fuller picture began to emerge. Linda would describe how she was taken through the ceiling of the apartments as if they weren’t there. She would recall how she was “standing up on nothing” before seeing an opening in the disc above.
After entering the ship, she recalled seeing lots of “benches” and “sliding doors” as she was brought down a hallway. Many lights and buttons were also prominent in her field of vision. She was eventually placed on a “large table” and it was here she began to feel fear rise up in her. She would yell and scream until one of the figures said something unrecognisable to her and put a hand over her mouth until the procedure was over.
But the case would subsequently get even more bizarre.
Hopkins would receive communications from two men identifying themselves only as “Richard” and “Dan” who claimed to have been at the scene of the abduction on the night in question. They would originally pose as “New York policemen” before the revelation that, on the night in question, they were working as “bodyguards” to United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar. Furthermore, the pair also had apparent CIA connections, and their questionable behaviour in the months that followed would only add another dimension of bizarre intrigue to the whole affair.
Along with their high-profile passenger, Richard and Dan would claim their vehicle stalled just beneath the underpass of FDR Drive. Above an apartment building opposite the Brooklyn Bridge, was a huge, disc-shaped UFO. Even more unbelievable, a woman followed by three creatures were “floating through the air” and into the other-worldly craft. Once on board, the object would descend at frightening pace into the East River, near Pier 17. Both men, it would seem, were either greatly affected by the encounter, or they were receiving some very questionable orders.
In late-April 1991, both men would kidnap Linda, literally dragging her into a car as she walked along the street. They would interrogate her for several hours, even accusing her of having some involvement in recent events. They would release her without harm, but the experience shook Cortile considerably. Six months later an even more unnerving event took place. This time, Dan would kidnap her of his own accord. He would take her to a “safe house”, convinced she was “in” on the abduction incident and was a threat of some kind. She would escape the property, only for Dan to recapture her on the beach.
Only Richard arriving shortly after would stop Dan from drowning her in the sea. After he managed to sedate his partner, they would return to Manhattan. Although she didn’t see Dan again, she would hear from Richard around a month after the second kidnapping. According to Cortile, he informed her that Dan was “dangerously obsessed” with her and was in a mental facility. It doesn’t appear to be clear of the whereabouts of Dan or Richard today. And although Hopkins didn’t meet them directly, Cortile’s husband, son, and a friend of Linda’s did vouch for their existence and to having met them.
Around the same time as these bizarre events were unfolding, other witnesses were getting in touch with Hopkins. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy was, Janet Kimble (some sources spell this as Kimbell). She would claim her car had stalled on the Brooklyn Bridge in the early hours of 30th November 1989. She went on to describe the same scene as the two bodyguards/CIA agents. At the time, she would state, she believed she was witness to some special effects filming for an upcoming movie. As she learned of Cortile’s encounter, she finally felt the need to divulge her sighting.
What is interesting here is the second account of sudden car trouble. Although there are some discrepancies in the accounts of Dan and Richard, they too claimed a sudden cut-out in their vehicle. And as UFO researchers now know, this is a common detail in many close encounter cases.
And what of the “high-ranking” United Nations, Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar?
According to Hopkins, when he learned the identity of the high-ranking official in the care of Dan and Richard, he finally believed he would have the “smoking gun” of such cases. If he could convince Cuellar to go on record with his sighting, surely people would view such accounts more seriously. Also, the US government (who Hopkins didn’t particularly accuse of covering-up evidence as many other researchers did) would investigate the matter further.
He would speak with Cuellar, but the UN official claimed he could not go on record with such a claim. Furthermore, if his private confirmation to having witnessed the events ever went public, he would simply deny it. As you might imagine, this was a huge frustration for Hopkins, as much as he understood Cuellar’s position. Some sources claim a face-to-face, private meeting went ahead between the two men. Not only was he, Dan, and Richard witness to the events, further investigation would also suggest the abduction of all three of the men.
Not everyone believes the Cuellar angle, however. Some would point to regular “check-points” the vehicle had to pass whenever anyone such as a high-ranking UN official was in transit. And if they didn’t, a response unit would go and find their passenger immediately. This is perhaps true, although, whether the procession did miss these check-points on the evening in question is unknown.
Witnesses have continued to come forward well into the 2000's. It would seem, in fact, that there are several corroborating witnesses to the presence of the UN limousine procession that morning in 1989. A “well-known journalist” with the New York Post was leaving a bar close to the offices of the paper. After realising he was too drunk to drive, he would ask one of the newspaper’s drivers to take him home. The reply came back that the lorries were unable to leave as “several limos are blocking the street!” Some believe that in one of those “limos” sat Cuellar, Dan, and Richard.
Perhaps the most intriguing, and possibly the most valuable, recollections are those of
Yancy Spence. In the article “The Day Manhattan Stood Still” he would recall being in the offices of the New York Post building, and, along with several others, witnessing the events as they unfolded. He would also put forward his belief of the abduction of several journalists that evening.
Perhaps that is what ultimately happened that November morning in 1989 while most of New York slept. If the claims of other abductees are authentic, then perhaps other onlookers – who Spence claims there were many from buildings and cars on the road – were also abducted. Maybe the Manhattan abduction was the Manhattan “Mass” Abduction?
And for those who were mere spectators to the events, is it possible that some kind of mass-memory-wipe took place? A futuristic concept with highly-advanced technology? Many of the people Spence spoke with, when they were “asked” to remember, suddenly recalled the events in question, while also recalling how they immediately “forgot about it” and went on with their day. In abduction cases, this happens more often than some might think.
For many, it is hard to know what to make of the case of Linda Cortile and the Brooklyn Bridge incident. While Budd Hopkins was a genuine and skilled researcher, there are those who believe Cortile “fabricated” parts of the story if not the whole thing. In ufology there have been many instances of reports of a genuine experience leading to further claims of half-truths, exaggerations, and outright lies.
George Adamski is perhaps most synonymous with this type of behaviour (see earlier posts on this thread).
On the one hand, there are multiple witnesses in this case – none of whom have ever gone back on their stories in the 35 years that have followed the incident. This fact of itself makes a hoax rather unlikely. On the other hand, the account is more than somewhat bizarre with equally outlandish claims occurring in the fall-out from the incident after it became public knowledge. Perhaps not least were the accusations of a monetary incentive where the abductee Linda Cortile was concerned.
I attach a YouTube video of Budd Hopkins talking about the case:
For more see:
The Controversial Alien Abduction Case Of Linda Cortile - UFO Insight
So, what to make of it all? Well the C's had the following to say about the case when Laura raised it with them in the
session dated 1 January 1995:
Q: (L) We want to know what kind of energy is behind Budd Hopkins?
A: Divergent.
Q: (L) Is he on the right track in his research?
A: Halfway.
Q: (T) Is the Linda Cortile case a set-up to discredit him?
A: No.
Q: (T) Everything that she says happened really happened to her?
A: In 4th density.
Q: (T) Well, all the abduction stuff was in 4 D, but being pulled out of the apartment from the 17th floor or wherever it was [MJF: it was in fact the 12th floor], and being sucked up in the beam of the light, that actually happened to her?
A: In 4th density.
Q: (T) How did people in 3rd density see it?
A: Only those who were tuned in saw it.
Q: (L) Were there people there who did not see it?
A: Yes.
Q: (T) What or who were some of the people who didn't see it?
A: Not important.
The C's have spoken a lot about the different types of alien abduction, actual bodily and virtual reality etc. Here they make it clear that this was an abduction that occurred in 4th density. Only those who were tuned in saw it, which might explain the sudden memory loss where some eyewitnesses were concerned. However, the main observation is that the C's said the abduction really did take place.
Law Suit
The reason for raising this 35 year old abduction case is that Netflix have recently made a documentary series called 'The Manhattan Alien Abduction', which takes the view that it was all an enormous hoax and possibly one of the most compelling UFO deceptions ever. This claim came, surprisingly, from none other than Budd Hopkins' ex-wife, Carol Rainey (who died last year), who was once Linda's friend. It has so enraged Linda Cortile that she is now suing Netflix and the documentary makers for defamation and fraud. If the case comes to court (assuming it is not settled out of court first) then it may turn on what the judges of the New York State Supreme Court make of the witnesses' testimony, many of whom are now dead. However, if Cortile wins her case, it would establish a precedent that in its own way would be a form of disclosure.
The UK's Daily Mail newspaper did an article on the legal battle on 18th November, which raised some interesting points.
1. Cortile had originally got in touch with Hopkins in April 1989, seven months before her encounter, to say that she believed she'd had an extra-terrestrial encounter in the Catskill Mountains 13 years earlier, which had left her with a strange coiled object under her skin. Hopkins suspected this to be an implanted tracking device. Cortile began attending the group support meetings Hopkins hosted at his house for 'fellow abduction victims' until her encounter in November of that year.
2. Cortile became convinced the following year that her nine-year old son Johnny had also been abducted by three aliens while she stood frozen nearby. Rainey suspected the boy had been coached by his mother. Johnny has always denied the claim, although he admits that he had a terrible nightmare when he was young, which his mother informed him was most likely a real experience.
3. In 2020 the late Javier Perez de Cuellar told a US broadcaster that he had never had any experience of an alien abduction.
4. No fewer than 23 witnesses were interviewed and quoted in Budd Hopkins' best selling book about the case, The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions. All 23 claimed they had seen Cortile in her white nightgown, float towards a UFO as it hovered over the Brooklyn Bridge that night before disappearing into the East river. These included a newspaper delivery driver on his way to work, who said: "It scared the heck out of me. I saw a woman coming out of a window and just disappear." Cathy Turner, a book keeper, also said that she had seen an object like 'a big Christmas ball - glowy and shiny' in the sky.
5. In a riposte to sceptics, Cortile told Vanity Fair magazine in 2013: "If I was hallucinating, then the witnesses saw my hallucination. That sounds crazier than the whole abduction phenomenon."
Cortile and Peter Robbins, an UFO researcher who worked with Hopkins, claim that the documentary producers tricked them into speaking at length on the show by telling them that they would tell Cortile's true story. In papers filed with the court, they claim that the documentary makers wanted to 'subject [Cortile] to shame and ridicule' and describe Carol Rainey as 'an embittered, alcoholic ex-wife'. In her legal complaint, Cortile claims that Rainey was 'hellbent on revenge'. This revenge motive is lent support by one source involved in the case who told the Daily Mail that they believe that Cortile and Hopkins did have a romantic relationship.
Cortile's lawyer, Robert Young, told the Daily Mail that the lawsuit is not about whether or not she was abducted by aliens but whether the documentary makers treated her fairly.
However, whether her lawyer will be able to successfully disassociate these two things remains to be seen.
N.B. Unfortunately, the Daily Mail article sits behind a pay wall, so I have not cited the link to the article in this case.