Mysterious skin

Stu Ferrol’s Forum piece “Stranger, darker things” [ FT347:58-59] touched on American conspiracies of children abducted for psychic experiments by the military. He linked them with Operation Yewtree in the UK, which has been investigating child abuse coverups in establishment institutions. Could these rumours, or memories of UFO abductions generally, be linked to repressed trauma of sexual assault? Readers interested in this story might enjoy Gregg Araki’s film Mysterious Skin (2004), a coming-of-age story about childhood sexual assault and aliens. It’s an exceptional film, harrowing at times, but very watchable – and will be thought provocative for ufologists. Emily Monaghan London