The Conundrum of Alien Abduction

摘要

The 1961 UFO encounter and subsequent abduction of my aunt and uncle, Betty and Barney Hill, ushered in the modern age of abduction investigations. It was the first credible report to a UFO investigating group (NICAP) of a multiple witness close encounter (approximately 100 feet) of an unconventional disk shaped craft observed for at least 30 minutes.(1) Barney retained conscious recall of observing non-human figures aboard the craft that moved about and caused him to believe he was about to be captured. The craft interacted with the witnesses and vehicle (beeping and vibrating). This was followed by apparent amnesia during a two hour period of missing time. Upon arriving home the couple discovered physical evidence that could not be explained in prosaic terms. The following day, the Hills reported their close encounter to Pease Air Force Base. A month later, NICAP investigator Walter Webb began his preliminary investigation with a six hour interview of both witnesses. He would go down in history as the first UFO investigator to conduct an extensive investigation of alien abduction. (1) Since that time, thousands of suspected abductees have sought help from abduction researchers and investigators. They sometimes present evidence such as missing time after encountering a UFO and non-human entities while driving, camping, etc., being missing and actively sought after, awaking locked outside one's home with memories of alien contact, awaking dressed in someone else's clothing with memories of alien contact, awaking with memories of non-human contact and physical injury, stained and torn clothing, etc.. Some of the evidence has been analyzed in scientific laboratories, but funding is in short supply and significant evidence cases often wait years before funding can be acquired and reputable scientists can perform analyses on it. Funding, however, has been made available for experimental social science studies, not of the UFO evidence, but of those who report close encounters and abductions. The infamous "Trick Memo", written by Robert J. Low (assistant dean of the graduate school) to University of Colorado officials on August 9, 1966, and accidently discovered by Norman Levine, Ph.D., a Condon Committee scientific investigator and handed to David R. Saunders, PhD., suggested that social scientists might produce scholarly publications as a result of their investigation of "saucer observers". The subsequent National Academy of Science's report on the Condon Report recommended that UFO reports "should be of interest to social scientists". Beginning in the late 1970s numerous social scientists have spearheaded academic investigations, not on alien abduction per se, but upon the alleged psychological aberrations and personality characteristics that lead to the misguided belief that UFOs and alien abduction are real. Needless to say, this a priori denial of UFO evidence is biased and prejudiced. Yet, peer reviewed scholarly publications denying UFO abduction reality have generated mainstream publicity, whereas scholarly articles that support the reality of alien abduction are far less likely to be published in mainstream scientific journals. Having been personally embroiled in the abduction debate for forty six years and professionally involved for the past twenty years, I believe it is extraordinarily important to examine the findings of UFO abduction investigators (including myself) and the results of social science experiments aimed at identifying the underlying psychological aberrations that might lead to the alleged fantasy or delusion that UFOs and alien abduction are real. In this paper, I will review several of the social science investigations, including experimental studies and hypotheses relating to alien abduction and the best scientific evidence that abduction might be real.