Alien Abductions

A layout of a flying saucer as pieced together from abductee's accounts.

Alien abductions, which are sometimes referred to as "close encounters of the fourth kind," form an additional category of incidents. Here witnesses claim they had very close contact with, or were abducted by, the occupants of UFOs.

One of the earliest reports of an alien abduction is the story of Betty and Barney Hill. Dr. Benjamin Simon, a prominent Boston psychiatrist took the Hills as patients in January of 1964. Three years earlier, in September of 1961, the Hills had been driving south on U.S. 3, in New Hampshire, when they saw a moving light in the sky. It seemed to be traveling on a parallel, though somewhat erratic course, to their car. Near the town of Indian Head the object suddenly appeared directly in front of them, seventy feet overhead and one hundred feet distant. Barney got out of the car to observe the object with binoculars. He could see between five and eleven figures, dressed in shiny black uniforms, moving behind a row of windows. Fearing the creatures would try and capture them, Barney jumped back in the car and drove off at high speed. Then they heard a "beeping" noise and felt suddenly drowsy. Two hours later they found themselves 35 miles further south and had no idea what had transpired. They drove home and the next day reported the incident to Pease Air Force Base, and a few days later to the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP).

Unbearable feelings of anxiety persisted after the incident for both Hills thus leading them to consult Dr. Simon. Under hypnosis the Hills recalled being stopped by the aliens, taken aboard a ship, and given a medical examination. Samples of hair, fingernails, and skin were taken. Then the couple was returned to their car and allowed to go. Dr. Simon expressed the opinion that the couple actually believed they were taken aboard a spaceship, but that the account is actually a shared fantasy. The details of their stories, which matched closely, came from dreams Betty had recounted to her husband before treatment started. People do not necessarily tell the factual truth while they are under hypnosis, only what they believe to be true.

After the Hill incident hit the press and was dramatized in a television movie, many similar stories appeared from a wide range of people from different walks of life. How many of these, if any, represent actual experiences, as opposed to fantasies or outright hoaxes, is unknown. Some psychiatrists suggest that abduction experiences are the result of the witness's mind slipping into an altered state of consciousness. The change could be triggered by any number of stimuli such as drugs, a shock, or even a real UFO. Some evidence for this can be seen in a series of experiments performed in California in 1977 by Alvin Lawson. In these tests hypnotized subjects were asked to imagine being kidnaped by a UFO. The resulting fantasies were indistinguishable in form or detail from actual cases.

A significant number of abduction stories start not with a UFO on a roadside, but with the victim at home in bed. A common theme is waking to find several aliens standing at the foot of the bed. They may enter the room by walking through walls and the victim is paralyzed by some mysterious force. Carried to the UFO they are examined, poked and prodded. Later they are returned to their bedrooms and upon waking only a hazy memory of the nights events remain, though the victim may have unexplained bruises or marks.

Such a scenario suggests that many of these visitations are actually vivid dreams. Paralysis during deep sleep is normal; it is the mechanism that keeps our bodies from acting out our dreams and hurting ourselves. Indeed failure of the paralysis mechanism leads to sleep walking and other, potentially hazardous sleep disorders. Occasionally a sleeper enters a state soon after waking or falling asleep where sleep paralysis is complete, and dreams are vivid and seem real. If the sleeper's dream consists of an alien abduction he or she might awake thinking the experience was real. Marks on the body that might normally go unnoticed suddenly take on a new significance in the light of the "abductee's" dream.

Of course, not all abduction experiences happen in bed, or even at night. Still, until some abductee returns with an inconvertible piece of evidence, say a twenty-fifth century equivalent of a hand calculator, most scientists will continue to suspect that the abductee's experience, as real as it may have seemed, was psychological rather than physical.

Book: "UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game"

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