Hailey's interview is painful to watch – that child looks terrified. The available footage starts with her saying the flute noise scared her. Mack asks "What were you scared would happen?" – putting the idea in her head that something frightening was about to happen, which she had not mentioned at all (in the available clips). But now she's required to come up with a frightening scenario, and she does: "I thought the aliens would attack me." Even though she also says the aliens weren't unfriendly and didn't try to attack.
Kayleigh V describes the alien's eyes and is asked to come up with a feeling when she looked at them. She says the eyes were evil, then has trouble coming up with a reason, settling for: "It looked evil because it was just staring at me." Not good enough. Mack requires her to explain the alien's motivation for its evil stare: "Staring at you… as if to do what?" and she finds one: "As if it wanted to come and take us."
Francis's interview is almost comical. He draws the alien's eyes, describing them in matter-of-factly. Mack requires him to produce a feeling. Francis, smiling and having fun, reports shaking, feeling terrified, woozy… "Why did you keep looking?" Mack asks, even though Francis just said he stopped looking.
Rather than contradict the Very Nice and Important American, Francis attempts but fails to find a reason. Mack asks, "What do you imagine is his reason for visiting Earth?" This is a request to speculate ("We never force the child to imagine in the question." - Gilles Fernandez). Francis thinks long and hard before coming up with a half-hearted: "Pollution or something." Mack's excited response tells him he got the answer "right".
Now Mack rephrases the question to turn it into a telepathic message: "And how did he get that idea of pollution across to you?" Remember, Francis was not recounting a message at all. He was imagining – as requested. After all that talk about the alien's eyes making him woozy, he's well-primed to give the correct response (though he sounds unsure): "The way he was staring?" Mack again rephrases in a definitive tone, to reinforce: "Somehow there was a message about pollution from the way he was staring?" And with relief, Francis says: "Yes."
Turns out the idea didn't originate with aliens or with Francis's imagination: "There had been some prior discussion in school about what causes pollution, Francis told me, but this was the first time he had thought about it or spoken of it." [Mack, Passport to the Cosmos (1999), p. 97]
Emma K talks about her emotional reaction to the beings – she's excited, scared, and happy about seeing something new. The eyes told her: "I want you," which Mack helpfully suggests means: "I want you to come with me." Emma reports to Mack (although not previously, in available footage) that she got 3 to 4 yards from the being.
