#2061: Sandy Nichols

Sandy Nichols is an alleged alien abductee and Founder and President of the Alien Research Group (ARG) (website here), a Tennessee organization ostensibly created “for the study of alien abductions” but that really just works to help alleged abductees get their stories out. The ARG laments that people tend to limit their beliefs to “only those things that can be detected by our five senses or confirmed in a scientific laboratory,” and considers itself (or himself – it’s probably just Nichols) to be a group working in the spirit of Galileo by disregarding narrow-minded scienceand mathematicsin its investigation of alien activities and abductions. Nichols himself is an abductee whose memories of alien abductions “resurfaced” later in life, as detailed in his self-published book Different Child. 

Apparently the ARG doesn’t limit itself (himself) to UFOs and alien abductions, but do “extensive research” (they keep using the word “research”, but with a strange and new meaning) into the “paranormal realm” related to “ghosts, ESP, poltergeist activity, life after death experiences, astrology, dimensional beings, time shifts and time travel and spiritual enlightenment to name just a few.” The ARG “welcomes submission stories, strange photos, drawings, etc dealing with unusual phenomena,” which strongly suggests that what they are doing is not research (hypothesis testing) but attempting to judiciously select evidence that confirms what they have already convinced themselves is true.

The website posts include (in addition to “How Can I Receive the Best Auto Insurance in Maryland”) posts about mothman sightings in Tennessee, orbs, telepathic contact with aliens and an incoherent ramble (possibly) about alien viruses. Apparently Nichols himself is the father of alien-human hybrid children.

Diagnosis: One of many such websites littering the internet, and Nichols’s is overall a rather toned-down, friendly and boring example. That the nonsense is common doesn’t make it any less nonsensical, however.