‘The Manhattan Alien Abduction’ sparks controversy after subject sues Netflix

The story of Linda Napolitano, a New York City woman who says she was abducted from her bedroom and beamed onto a spaceship by extraterrestrial beings in 1989, has fascinated UFO enthusiasts for decades.

Now, Napolitano is the subject of a new three-part Netflix docuseries, “The Manhattan Alien Abduction.”

The docuseries revisits Napolitano’s 1989 abduction story, which she still stands by, and includes interviews with people who have supported her over the years.

“The Manhattan Alien Abduction” also includes commentary from one of her most prominent detractors, Carol Rainey, who worked until her death in 2023 to refute Napolitano’s abduction narrative. Rainey goes on the record in the documentary saying Napolitano “made it up.”

Rainey was previously married to Budd Hopkins, a figure in paranormal research who wrote a book about Napolitano’s experiences called “Witnessed: True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge Abduction.”

The already complex story became more entangled just a few days before the documentary’s release, when Napolitano and others sued Netflix, the filmmakers, the film’s producers and the estate of Rainey for fraud, defamation and other claims, and attempted to stop the release of the documentary.

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

Keep reading to learn more about Napolitano, her recent lawsuit against Netflix, and what is revealed in the docuseries.

Who is Linda Napolitano?

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

Napolitano, a housewife and stay-at-home mom, said that on the night of Nov. 30, 1989, three non-human beings appeared in her bedroom and made her levitate out of her 12th-story apartment window and into a spacecraft hovering above the city.

She discussed her alleged experience in interviews, like on the “Ricki Lake” show in the 1990s and Vanity Fair in 2013.

What set Napolitano’s story apart is that there were alleged witnesses to her abduction. 

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

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

Napolitano also said she was harassed by two men, whom she said were bodyguards for Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Rainey, in the documentary, called Napolitano’s accounts of these men into question. She argued Napolitano wrote the letters from them herself. Rainey worked with a forensics expert to prove the handwriting between letters from her and from the men were “virtually identical.”  

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

Why is Napolitano suing Netflix?On Oct. 28, 2024, two days before the Netflix documentary’s planned release, Napolitano filed a complaint in New York against Netflix, as well as various individuals and production companies involved in the documentary, plus 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 included in the documentary. 

The complaint seeks an undetermined amount of monetary damages for six claims, including fraud, defamation, and breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing.  

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

According to the complaint, Napolitano and Rainey are falsely pitted against each other.

“(Napolitano) was not remotely close to be like or appear as the person that is on screen, never had any bone to pick with Carol Rainey,” the complaint reads, “but was set up as such a villain for purposes of controversy and conflict, all of which was a patently and deliberately false portrayal to support the false narrative of the truth.”

Napolitano’s attorney, Robert Young, told TODAY.com in a phone call on Oct. 30 that she and Robbins feel they were “egregiously deceived” by the documentary’s producers.

“They would have never entered into any production or description of what happened to Linda that was going to be questioned and subject to such denigration and aspersions against their good names and character,” he said. “They’re not happy.”

What is explored in the documentary?

The documentary explains how Napolitano and Hopkins originally connected. 

Napolitano said in the documentary that when she was 41, she wrote Hopkins a letter after having an unsettling experience during a trip to the Catskill Mountains with her husband. Napolitano said she dreamed she was levitating, then woke up with a nosebleed, leading her to fear she may have been abducted.

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

The documentary also focuses heavily on the narrative of Carol Rainey, and how Rainey gradually came to question Napolitano and her ex-husband, Hopkins.

At first, Rainey said she found Napolitano believable, and they became friends. Rainey supported Hopkins’ work with Napolitano and she said in the documentary that, at first, she thought that they had come across a major, credible abduction case.

Over time, however, Rainey began to question whether Napolitano was telling the truth, she said in the documentary.

In the documentary, Rainey said she had seen her then-husband hypnotize several people as part of his work, and said Napolitano did not behave in the way most people do under hypnosis. She said Napolitano mimicked other people who had been hypnotized on purpose.

Napolitano refuted that in the documentary. “This was a true event to (Linda),” Napolitano’s lawyer told TODAY.com. 

The documentary also explores how Rainey grew concerned about Hopkins’ ethics as he carried out his investigative work.

“I felt that Budd had lost his objectivity,” she said. “I don’t know if it was through the Linda case, or earlier than that. I couldn’t respect what I heard him do to people who were vulnerable, very vulnerable. I had to try to protect other people from being tormented this way. I was sick. I was literally sick of the whole business, and the only thing I could think to do was to speak out about it.”

Napolitano vigorously denied Rainey’s accusations throughout the documentary, and questioned Rainey’s motives. 

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