Budd Hopkins, 1931 – 2011

Elliot "Budd" Hopkins

According to the NY Times, Budd Hopkins, a distinguished Abstract Expressionist artist who — after what he described as a chance sighting of something flat, silver, airborne and unfathomable — became the father of the alien-abduction movement, died on Aug. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 80. I only discovered this today and I’m sorry to be just getting around to it. I knew Budd at the beginnings of his UFO phase when he was an advisor to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, during my period as Director.

Budd at that time was married to the second of his three wives, art historian and critic April Kingsley, and they lived in a futuristic

Artwork by Budd Hopkins in the 1980s

concrete cottage that looked a lot like one of Budd’s paintings, in Truro. It wasn’t long before his artwork was overshadowed by his observation of a “UFO” and the publicity it gained. Being a member of the circle of New York artists that in the 1950s and ’60s included Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline, Budd had access to the press and was somewhat of a celebrity in summers on the Lower Cape.

Budd’s UFO sighting occurred on Cape Cod in 1964. After that he researched other sightings, people who claimed to have been abducted, and the government’s denial of the existence of any such phenomena. He was quick to point out that he had never been abducted.

He wrote about his experiences as a UFO researcher in his memoir, “Art, Life and UFOs,” published in 2009 by Anomalist Books.

Related articles

• Budd Hopkins, Alien Abductee Dies – or Does He? (weeklyworldnews.com)
• Budd Hopkins, Abstract Artist and U.F.O. Author, Dies at 80 (nytimes.com)
• Close Encounters – What do they really mean? (satellitelost.wordpress.com)