Alien abduction, also known as abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction, refers to the phenomenon claimed by people reporting that they or their patients have been kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychological experimentation. People claiming to have been abducted are usually called "abductees" or "experiencers".
Reports of the abduction phenomenon have been made all around the world, but are most common in English-speaking countries, especially the United States. Mainstream scientists reject claims that the phenomenon literally occurs as reported. UFO abduction claims have declined since their initial surge in the mid-1970s, and alien abduction narratives have found less popularity in mainstream media.
Early Cases and Key Figures
While the term "alien abduction" did not achieve widespread attention until the 1960s, modern speculation about some older stories interpreted them as possible cases. An early alien abduction claim occurred in the mid-1950s with the Brazilian Antônio Vilas-Boas case, which did not receive much attention until several years later. The first alleged alien abduction claim to be widely publicized was the Betty and Barney Hill abduction in 1961.
Widespread publicity was generated by the Betty and Barney Hill abduction case of 1961, culminating in a made-for-television film broadcast in 1975 (starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons) dramatizing the events. Though these two cases are sometimes viewed as the earliest abductions, skeptic Peter Rogerson notes that these cases established a template that later abductees and researchers would refine but rarely deviate from.
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Leo Sprinkle, a University of Wyoming psychologist, became interested in the abduction phenomenon in the 1960s. Sprinkle became convinced of the phenomenon's actuality and was perhaps the first to suggest a link between abductions and cattle mutilation. Eventually, Sprinkle came to believe that he had been abducted by aliens in his youth; he was forced from his job in 1989.
Budd Hopkins had been interested in UFOs for some years. In the 1970s, he became interested in abduction reports and began using hypnosis to extract more details of dimly remembered events. With Hopkins, Jacobs and Mack, accounts of alien abduction became a prominent aspect of ufology.
The 1980s brought a major degree of mainstream attention to the subject. Works by Hopkins, novelist Whitley Strieber, historian David M. Jacobs and psychiatrist John E. Mack presented alien abduction as a plausible experience.
Harvard psychiatry professor John E. Mack believed in the credibility of alien abduction claims. Niall Boyce writing in The Lancet called him "a well-meaning man uncritically elaborating on tales of alien abduction, and potentially both cementing and constructing false memories". Mack was a well known, highly esteemed psychiatrist, author of over 150 scientific articles and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of T. E. Lawrence. Due to Mack's belief and subsequent promotion of the claims of those he interviewed, his professional reputation suffered, prompting Harvard to review his position in 1994.
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Common Narratives and Events
Various researchers have noted common points in report narratives. According to CUFOS's definition of abductee, the person must have been taken against their will by apparent non-human beings, taken to a special place perceived as extraterrestrial or to be a spaceship. They then must experience being subjected to an examination or to engage in some form of communication with the beings (or both). Communication may be perceived as telepathic rather than verbal.
Although different cases vary in detail (sometimes significantly), some UFO researchers, such as folklorist Thomas E. Bullard argue that there is a broad, fairly consistent sequence and description of events that make up the typical "close encounter of the fourth kind" (a popular but unofficial designation building on J. Allen Hynek's classifications). Bullard argues most abduction accounts feature the following events:
- Capture
- Examination and Procedures
- Conference
- Tour
- Loss of Time
- Return
- Theophany
Coinciding with their immediate return, abductees may have a profound sense of love, a "high" similar to those induced by certain drugs, or a "mystical experience", accompanied by a feeling of oneness with God, the universe, or their abductors. Aftermath.
When describing the "abduction scenario", David M. Jacobs wrote that the entire abduction event is precisely orchestrated. All the procedures are predetermined. There is no standing around and deciding what to do next. Eventually, the experiencer will undergo an apparent "shift" into an altered state of consciousness. British abduction researchers have called this change in consciousness "the Oz Factor".
The examination phase of the so-called "abduction narrative" is characterized by the performance of medical procedures and examinations by apparently alien beings against or irrespective of the will of the experiencer. Such procedures often focus on sex and reproductive biology. However, the literature holds reports of a wide variety of procedures allegedly performed by the beings.
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Unlike Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs, folklorist Thomas E. Bullard also studied the 300 reports of alien abduction in an attempt to observe the less prominent aspects of the claims. He notes the emergence of four general categories of events that recur regularly, although not as frequently as stereotypical happenings like the medical examination.
Sometimes the alleged abductors appear to make mistakes when returning their captives. Hopkins has estimated that these "errors" accompany 4-5 percent of abduction reports. One type of common apparent mistake made by the abductors is failing to return the experiencer to the same spot that they were taken from initially.
This can be as simple as a different room in the same house, or abductees can even find themselves outside and all the doors of the house locked from the inside. Another common error is putting the abductee's clothes (e.g.
Psychological and Skeptical Perspectives
Physician and abduction researcher John G. Miller notes different areas of emphasis between human medicine and what is reported as being practiced by the abductors. This could result from a difference in the purpose of the examination - routine diagnosis or treatment or both versus scientific examination of an unfamiliar species -, or it could be due to a different level of technology that renders certain kinds of manual procedures unnecessary.
Most people alleging alien abductions report invasive examinations of their bodies and some ascribe psychological trauma to their experiences. "Post-abduction syndrome" is a term used by abductees to describe the effects of abduction, though it is not recognized by any professional treatment organizations. People who have a false memory which makes them believe that they have been abducted by aliens develop symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Alleged abductees seek out hypnotherapists to try to resolve issues such as missing time or unexplained physical symptoms such as muscle pain or headaches. This usually involves two phases, an information gathering stage, in which the hypnotherapist asks about unexplained illnesses or unusual phenomena during the patients' lives (caused by or distortions of the alleged abduction), followed by hypnosis and guided imagery to facilitate recall.
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Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack counters this argument, noting "It might be useful to restate that a large proportion of the material relating to abductions is recalled without the use of an altered state of consciousness, and that many abduction reporters appear to relive powerful experiences after only the most minimal relaxation exercise, hardly justifying the word hypnosis at all.
There have been a variety of explanations offered for abduction phenomena, ranging from sharply skeptical appraisals, to uncritical acceptance of all abductee claims, to the demonological, to everything in between. Others are intrigued by the entire phenomenon but hesitate in making any definitive conclusions. Psychiatrist John E. Mack concluded: "The furthest you can go at this point is to say there's an authentic mystery here.
Putting aside the question of whether abduction reports are literally and objectively "real", literature professor Terry Matheson argues that their popularity and their intriguing appeal are easily understood. Tales of abduction "are intrinsically absorbing; it is hard to imagine a more vivid description of human powerlessness". After experiencing the frisson of delightful terror one may feel from reading ghost stories or watching horror movies, Matheson notes that people "can return to the safe world of their homes, secure in the knowledge that the phenomenon in question cannot follow. But as the abduction myth has stated almost from the outset, there is no avoiding alien abductors".
Some writers, have said abduction experiences bear similarities to pre-20th century accounts of demonic manifestations, noting as many as a dozen similarities. One notable example is the Orthodox monk Fr.
As some studies suggest that in some UFO/alien encounters, these phenomena could be related to dissociative REM sleep states, like lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and out-of-body experiences.
In a 2021 study, published in International Journal of Dream Research, researchers focused on the hypothesis that if some of alien abduction stories are the products of REM sleep, then they could be deliberately emulated by lucid dreaming practitioners. To check the hypothesis, they instructed a group of volunteers to try to emulate alien encounters via lucid dreams. Of the volunteers, 114 (75%) were able to experience alien encounters. Regarding the successful cases, 20% were close to reality in terms of the absence of paradoxical dreamlike events. And only among this 20% sleep paralysis and fear were observed, which are common in 'real' stories.
While some corroborated accounts seem to support the literal reality of the abduction experience, others seem to support a psychological explanation for the phenomenon's origins. Brazilian researcher Gilda Moura reported on a similar case, the Sueli case, from her home country.
It has been argued that if actual "flesh and blood" aliens are abducting humans, there should be some hard evidence that this is occurring. Proponents of the physical reality of the abduction experience have suggested ways that could conceivably confirm abduction reports.
| Researcher | Key Focus |
|---|---|
| John E. Mack | Credibility of alien abduction claims |
| Budd Hopkins | Using hypnosis to extract details of abduction events |
| David M. Jacobs | Human-alien hybridization programs |
| Thomas E. Bullard | Common sequence and description of abduction events |