Why Do UFO Witnesses Get Headaches and Nausea?

Term: Stress response: the body’s reaction to fear, including fast heartbeat, trembling, nausea, and headache.

Term: Physical trace case: a report in which the object is said to have left evidence that can be measured.

Why Do UFO Witnesses Get Headaches and Nausea?

Some witnesses report headaches, nausea, and trembling soon after a close encounter. Fear can cause every one of those symptoms, so a frightening sighting is enough to explain many cases. A few cases, such as Cash-Landrum in 1980, involve more serious illness that may point to a physical exposure. No one has shown what that exposure was.

Two cases, three centuries apart

In April 1665, six fishermen near Stralsund, Germany, reported a sky battle and then a flat round shape, like a plate, hovering over a church until evening. Early accounts say the fishermen were so afraid that they hid their faces. In the following days they fell sick with trembling all over and pain in the head and limbs.

In Cash-Landrum, Texas, in 1980, the three witnesses reported nausea, vomiting, and headaches after standing near a hot, flaming object. Those symptoms were part of a wider illness that included skin damage, and Betty Cash was hospitalized.

What ordinary explanations offer

Fear alone can produce headaches, nausea, and trembling. A person who has just seen something frightening will often have those symptoms for a day or more. Long exposure to bright light can cause headaches. Suggestion also plays a role, since people who believe they were exposed to something dangerous may feel ill.

Why the ordinary explanation may not cover everything

It is harder to explain a case like Cash-Landrum, where the illness was severe and lasted, and where the witnesses said they felt heat. It is also harder to explain when several people fall ill together. If a real exposure occurred in those cases, no one has identified it.

Older parallels

The Bible describes physical torment connected to spiritual causes. In Mark 9:17 to 27, a boy is seized by a spirit and foams and grinds his teeth. In Luke 13:11 to 16, a woman is bent double for eighteen years by what the text calls a spirit of infirmity. These passages do not say all illness has a spiritual cause, and they say nothing about lights in the sky. Some researchers compare them to UFO-related illness, and the comparison is an interpretation. Outside Scripture, Tertullian, writing around 197 AD in his Apology, said demons cause bodily harm, disease, and mental disturbance. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus wrote that demons brought on King Saul’s choking fits and that Solomon’s exorcisms healed diseases that demons caused. Josephus also described an exorcist named Eleazar freeing a man in front of the Roman general Vespasian. These writers show that ancient people linked illness to spirits. They do not show that the illness in UFO cases has the same cause.

What is solid and what is not

Witnesses in different centuries reported similar symptoms after frightening encounters. That is documented. Whether the symptoms came from fear or from a physical exposure is not settled. Disclosure is available on Amazon. You can find more of my work at ckqbooks.com.

Sources

Berliner Ordinari und Postzeitungen, April 10, 1665, as cited by Chris Aubeck and Martin Shough, Return to Magonia (2015). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, A UFO in 1665 (2023). Wikipedia, Cash-Landrum incident. Mark 9 and Luke 13 (King James Version).