Alien Abduction Experiences
Beginning in 1965 hundreds of people have reported being abducted by aliens from another planet, who then subject them to various physical exams, procedures, and experiments before returning them to the site of their abduction. The first such report, involving the supposed abduction of Betty Hill and her husband, Barney, while they were driving on a deserted road, had certain characteristics that appear again and again in more recent accounts of such experiences. The similarities among these stories has convinced some psychologists and ufologists that abductions are real experiences.
Circumstances of Abductions
All abductees report having encountered one or more aliens at an isolated location, such as a deserted road, a forest, or a private home or backyard, after which they are taken away. Some abductees say that they had decided to go to these secluded places for easily identifiable reasons, but others insist that they were drawn to these places by a sudden, inexplicable urge, the implication being that the aliens were somehow influencing their actions. Most abductees are alone when their experience begins, but a few are part of a small group. In these cases, they report that the aliens choose to abduct only one or two people from the group, leaving the rest behind in some kind of trance. The trance ends when the abductee is returned.
Most abductees report leaving quietly with the aliens, having themselves been placed in some kind of trance or similarly docile state. A few, however, report running from or resisting the aliens, who then subdue them in some violent way, such as with a device that delivers an electric shock. Abductees taken from private homes, however, generally say that the aliens enter their rooms on beams of light, usually through open or closed windows, then somehow place the abductee in a trance. The aliens then either examine their subjects within the house or take them to their spaceship. In most cases, the abductees are walked or carried away, but in some cases they are floated away through unknown means, often entering the aliensâ spaceship through a dark tunnel.
Alien Examinations
Abducteesâ descriptions of the aliens and their actions are also fairly consistent. Abductees claim that during their experience two distinct types of aliens are present: one about 2 to 4 feet (.6 to 1.2m) tall, with smooth, rubberlike skin; and the other about 5 feet (1.5m) tall with rough, leathery skin; both are described as being gray or tan with large heads and enormous, oddly shaped eyes. The larger aliens, each of which appears to be a unique individual, are apparently supervisors, directing the work of the smaller aliens, all of whom look alike and perform only menial tasks, such as transporting abductees to their spaceship. Almost all abductees say that in communicating with one another or with the abductees, the aliens use mental telepathy instead of speaking aloud.
By most accounts, the aliensâ exams and procedures are conducted in small, circular rooms with unfamiliar machines, seemingly metallic floors, and white and gray walls. Some abductees say they spent time before their exam in a narrow, curved waiting room equipped with benches built into the walls. The exam itself is said to move from foot to head, with aliens leaving no area of the abducteesâ bodies untouched. Aliens supposedly scrape the humansâ skin for cell samples; snip off pieces of hair; look inside eyes, ears, nose, and throat; and sometimes use machinery that looks similar to X-ray equipment. They might also take tissue samples from the leg, arm, or back, making incisions that are variously described as long and thin, wide and messy, or scoop shaped. The aliens sometimes reportedly collect sperm or ova.
Many abductees report that the aliens end the examination by placing a small, round object deep inside the subjectâs nose or ear. Sometimes an abductee says that the aliens removed such an object instead; this person is typically someone who claims to have been abducted more than once. Some researchers who are convinced that abductions are real suggest that the implant allows the aliens to keep track of an abductee for future recapture. Repeat abductees often report that the same tall alien has been present at every one of their abductions. Occasionally, a female repeat abductee has said that during one abduction the aliens implanted an embryo in her womb, then removed it during a later abduction.
Some female abductees have also reported being asked to hold, play with, or talk to half-alien, half-human babies after the aliens have communicated to them that these hybrid children need human contact. In such cases, the abductees say that the hybrids, some of which seem more humanlike than others, are listless and sickly. According to some abductees, the aliens also have hybrid fetuses in tanks filled with a blue liquid.
Other abductees claim that the aliens subjected them to various psychological tests. Often these tests include watching scenes on a screen or being asked to visualize scenes that would elicit a positive or negative emotion. Other tests appear related to evaluating memory, tolerance for pain, or manual dexterity.
Abduction Aftermath
After the testing is completed, the experience abruptly ends with the abductee being rushed back to the location at which the abduction took placeâthough sometimes abductees say that the aliens returned them to the wrong place. Upon their return, most abductees report being at first unable to remember the experience, which has led some people to suggest that the aliens are capable of blocking human memories. However, most abductees do realize that a chunk of time is missing from their memory. In many cases, their curiosity about this missing time, along with feelings of anxiety, panic attacks, stomach upsets, and/or other symptoms of psychological and physical stress, make them decide to seek treatment. Usually the treatment involves hypnosis. In fact, most abduction experiences surface during hypnosis, which suggests to skeptics that abduction experiences are simply false memories unintentionally planted during treatment. This is one of most prominent explanations of the abduction phenomenon voiced by people who do not believe in extraterrestrials.
SEE ALSO:
- alien contact, physical evidence of;
- alien contact,psychological signs of;
- Hill, Betty and Barney
SOURCE:
The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning