Why the woman who told the story of the alien abduction in Manhattan is suing

The story of Linda Napolitano, a New Yorker who says she was abducted from her bedroom and put on a spaceship by aliens in 1989, has fascinated UFO enthusiasts for decades.

Now, Napolitano is being filmed for a new three-part Netflix documentary series, Manhattan Alien Abduction.

The documentary revisits the story of Napolitano’s 1989 kidnapping, which she still maintains, and features interviews with people who have supported her over the years.

Manhattan Alien Abduction also features commentary from one of her most prominent detractors, Carol Rainey, who worked until her death in 2023 to disprove the Napolitano abduction story. In the documentary, Rainey says Napolitano “made it up.”

Rainey was previously married to Budd Hopkins, a paranormal investigator who wrote a book about Napolitano’s experience called The Witness: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge Kidnapping.

An already complicated story became even more muddled just days before the documentary’s release, when Napolitano and others sued Netflix, the film’s creators, the film’s producers and Rainey’s estate for fraud, defamation and other claims and tried to stop the film from being released. documentary.

TODAY.com has reached out to Netflix, Top Hat Productions, Witnessed Productions and Story Films for comment. They did not answer.

Keep reading to learn more about Napolitano, her recent lawsuit against Netflix, and what the documentary reveals.

Who is Linda Napolitano?

Napolitano said she was abducted by aliens from her apartment in Manhattan, New York.

Napolitano, a housewife and stay-at-home mother, said that on the night of November 30, 1989, three aliens appeared in her bedroom and forced her to fly out of her 12th-story apartment window into a hovering spaceship. over the city

She has discussed her alleged experience in interviews such as on The Ricki Lake Show. in the 1990s and Vanity Fair in 2013.

Napolitano’s story was distinguished by the fact that there were alleged witnesses to her abduction.

“If I was hallucinating,” Napolitano said Vanity Fair in 2013, “then witnesses saw my hallucination. That sounds crazier than the whole abduction thing.”

However, none of the witnesses were ever publicly identified, nor were they interviewed in the documentary. Hopkins said he interviewed them for his book, but used pseudonyms. Napolitano is referred to as “Linda Cortile” in the book.

Napolitano also said she was chased by two men who she said were bodyguards for Javier Pérez de Cuellar, the former UN secretary general.

In the documentary, Rainey questioned Napolitano’s accounts of these people. She claimed that Napolitano wrote the letters from them himself. Rainey worked with a forensics expert to prove that the handwriting between her letters and the men’s was “virtually identical”.

Napolitano now lives in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, according to her recently filed lawsuit.

Why is Napolitano suing Netflix?On October 28, 2024, two days before the Netflix documentary was scheduled to be released, Napolitano filed a complaint in New York against Netflix, various individuals and production companies involved in the documentary, and the estate of Carol Rainey.

Napolitano filed the complaint along with two other plaintiffs: Peter Robbins, a former colleague and friend of Hopkins, and the estate of Budd Hopkins. Robbins is also featured in the documentary.

The complaint seeks an unspecified amount in monetary damages on six counts, including fraud, defamation and breach of the covenant of good faith.

In the complaint, the plaintiffs asked the New York State Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting the defendants from releasing the documentary. However, Netflix’s Alien Invasion of Manhattan was released as scheduled on the streaming platform on October 30.

According to the complaint, Napolitano and Rainey falsely harass each other.

“(Napolitano) was not even close to being like or looking like the person he is on screen, never had any arguments with Carol Rainey,” the complaint states, “but was created as such a villain for the purpose of controversy and conflict.” , and all of this was clearly and deliberately misrepresented to support a false narrative of truth.”

Napolitano’s attorney, Robert Young, told TODAY.com in an Oct. 30 phone call that he and Robbins believe they were “maliciously deceived” by the documentary’s producers.

“They would never have entered into any production or description of what happened to Linda that would have been questioned and subjected to such slander and defamation of their good names and character,” he said. “They are not happy.”

What is explored in the documentary?

The documentary explains how Napolitano and Hopkins first connected.

Napolitano said in the documentary that when she was 41 years old, she wrote the letter to Hopkins after she had a disturbing experience on a trip to the Catskill Mountains with her husband. Napolitano said she dreamed she was levitating and then woke up with a nosebleed that made her fear she might have been abducted.

Napolitano and Hopkins had already communicated about this experience in the Catskills at the time of her alleged abduction in Manhattan in late 1989.

The documentary also focuses on the story of Carol Rainey and how Rainey gradually began questioning Napolitano and her ex-husband, Hopkins.

At first, Rainey said she found Napolitano believable, and the two became friends. Rainey supported Hopkins’ work with Napolitano, and she said in the documentary that at first she thought they were dealing with a big, credible kidnapping case.

However, over time, Rainey began to doubt whether Napolitano was telling the truth, as she said in the documentary.

In the documentary, Rainey said she saw her then-husband hypnotize several people as part of his work, and said Napolitano did not behave like most people under hypnosis. She said Napolitano imitated other people who were deliberately hypnotized.

Napolitano denied this in the documentary. “It was a real event for (Linda),” Napolitano’s attorney told TODAY.com.

The documentary also details how Rainey became concerned about Hopkins’ ethics during the investigation.

“I felt that Budd had lost his objectivity,” she said. “I don’t know if it was because of the Linda thing or before. I couldn’t respect what I heard he was doing to people who were vulnerable, very vulnerable. I had to try to protect other people from such torment. I was sick. I was literally fed up with this whole thing and the only thing I could think of was to speak out about it.”

Napolitano strongly denied Rainey’s allegations throughout the documentary and questioned Rainey’s motives.

“She would b—-,” Napolitano said near the end of the final episode. “She used my case, me and my family as a tool to get even with Budd.”