Journal of Abduction Research

History

Susan Swiatek edited the Journal of Abduction-Encounter Research from Fairfax, Virginia, with a Board of Editors comprising John Carpenter (Springfield, Missouri), Elaine Douglass (Moab, Utah), and Barbara Lamb (Claremont, California). Rosemary Ellen Guiley later joined as Associate Editor. The journal launched in Q1 2007 as an email-distributed PDF with professional two-column layout, contributor photographs, and pull quotes. Subscriptions ran $20 per year for four quarterly issues, with checks sent to John Carpenter at PO Box 14517, Springfield, MO 65814. The website operated at www.jarmag.com.

The publication openly positioned itself as a debating platform rather than an advocacy organ. Its first editorial described the phenomenon as potentially "extraterrestrial," "inter-dimensional," or "ultra-dimensional" and invited "all cogently argued points of view." This editorial posture was genuine: within the same issues, Carpenter cautioned against labelling encounters as good or evil, Lamb emphasised therapeutic transformation, Hopkins argued alien agendas involving hybrids, and Jacobs presented what he titled "A Picture We May Not Wish to Gaze Upon." The spectrum of positions appeared side by side without editorial reconciliation.

The contributor roster across all nine issues constitutes a near-complete directory of active abduction researchers in the 2007 to 2010 period: Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, John Carpenter, Barbara Lamb, Derrel Sims, Helen Littrell, Craig Lang, Farah Yurdozu, Nadine Lalich, Elaine Bickle, Michael Menkin (inventor of the "Thought Screen Helmet"), and Andrew Hennessey. Several of these researchers would retire, face controversy, or die within the following five years, making JAR one of the last publications to carry their work in a common forum.