Alien Abduction Syndrome

Maria ImPSYC 493C: Contemporary Controversies

in Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology

The Alien Abduction Plot

One argument which has been used as validation of the alien abduction phenomenon is the consistency of the stories being told by the abductees

Abductees are taken by strange looking beings The most common description of them now is that they are short,

gray beings with big eyes Abductees are forced to undergo physical and mental procedures

A lot of them report having their ovum and sperm taken Long needles may be used The procedures are often painful

Abductees are put back from where they were taken with a considerable chunk of time missing from their days Sometimes they have marks on their bodies

Differences

The only thing which is truly consistent is this general plot, some reports may be similar to others which have already been published or were portrayed in some form of media but these aspects tend to vary: how they are taken when they are taken why they are taken how the beings that took them appear what examinations are done

Abduction Stories Sherry-has a young daughter

in what she thought was a dream she felt a tingling between her legs, the sensation increased, she woke up to scratches on her thighs, not retrieved by hypnosis

Remembered abduction of her child using hypnosis Stopped seeing strange lights and abductions stopped

around the same time she started falling into a depression and taking prozac

Joel-memories since he was 4, When he was young the aliens looked reptilian and played

many games with him, only one traumatic experience when he was six that involved an anal probe.

By puberty, the classic gray aliens predominated, had robotic movements, they are less friendly, the focus is on medical procedures

Later on, procedures become less medical and more sexual, they take his sperm, female alien mounts him

More Stories

Many have reported being told that their gametes will be used to produce hybrids, some have even been shown their hybrid children and told to interact with them

Will- 42 yr old chiropractor Has had memories of abductions for

the past ten yrs Had been going through a rough

patch in life, then he was abducted He became close with an alien and

fathered twin hybrids with her, does not report ever seeing them

Is grateful to have been chosen even if it was painful and traumatic

Where did the little gray aliens come from?

In Joel’s story, his reptilian aliens were later replaced by the more commonly known short gray aliens

The first report of these aliens appeared in the reports of Betty and Barney Hill who were abducted in September 1961

Memories recovered by hypnosis in 1964 Remembered 12 days after the “Bellero Shield” episode of the

Outer Limits which featured aliens with those distinctive large eyes

Betty had seen Invaders from Mars where a large needle was stuck into the female characters navel by grey humanoids

The Effect of Media The abduction became a

media sensation Soon afterwards, many

others came forward with similar stories and many more books of similar accounts were published

The media continues to create many movies and television shows on the topic

Some Statistics (from Clancy’s Book)

American polls 93% believe aliens exist 27% believe aliens have visited earth 85% of adults believe evidence of life on

other planets exists Half of them believe it is possible human have

been abducted 80% believe the government is hiding

information about aliens

So what do the media and statistics matter? By constantly bombarding the general public with images and

stories of abductions, the public becomes more accepting of the idea that it could be true as evident by the statistics

If people believe that this is a true phenomenon than they are more likely to attribute anything they can’t explain to it

There are a lot of people who don’t even have memories of being abducted yet they believe they were abducted because they had weird experiences such as finding marks they couldn’t explain or changes in their mood and sleep

Instead of finding a more scientifically proven explanation for these symptoms, the abductees start to question whether it was an abduction because in their mind, and in most other Americans minds, it is possible even without evidence

Then those who look for proof are bound to find it in any support group or in hypnosis

Hypnosis and False Memories

Putting people in a very suggestible state where they must try to imagine what happened to them, already holding the belief that it may have involved an alien abduction

Sleep Paralysis accompanied by Hypnopompic Hallucination

It is an inability to speak or move when falling asleep or awakening

During REM sleep we are completely paralyzed and if we awake during this time it is like dreaming with your eyes open

Many abductees report waking to find they are unable to move

A Medical Hypothesis Anesthesia puts people into an altered state-most memories are

retrieved by putting people into an altered state It is not well known how to monitor the awareness of

patients under anasthesia 1-2 of every 1000 patients report some sort of awareness

during anesthesia The eyes are prominent features-can only see eyes of doctors who

operate Person is put on tables and probed by various tools-use several

tools to cut into and change something in the body In a operating room, they most likely have the most advanced

technology which may seem foreign and scary to most-aliens have high tech little gadgets in their nice clean operating room like rooms