Since the first reported alien abduction in 1957 by Antonio Villas Boas, there have been a number of others who have also claimed to have been abducted. Their stories are remarkably similar. They wake up to find themselves paralyzed, unable to move or cry out for help. They see flashing lights and hear buzzing sounds. They feel an electrical sensation that makes their bodies levitate. Approaching aliens with enveloping eyes, gray or green skin, no hair or noses, make the abductees’ hearts beat violently. They are transported to the alien’s ship where they are probed. Instruments are inserted into their noses, belly buttons, or other openings. It is painful. Sometimes sexual intercourse occurs.

After a few seconds or minutes it’s over. The aliens have disappeared and the abductees are back in their own beds and can move again.

This experience sounds strangely like someone experiencing sleep paralysis. You wake up to find yourself paralyzed, unable to move or scream for help. You are transcending from a dream state to a waking state causing hallucinations, where you can see and hear strange shapes and sounds. When you’re wide awake, you’re not sure what just happened.

Well, how do I come to remember all the details of my experience? Well, most people who claim to have been abducted only remember the experience after being hypnotized to help them regain their lost memories.

Some leading psychologists believe that hypnosis is a deceptive way to help recover memories. Not only that, it makes the subject susceptible to creating memories of things that never happened, things that were suggested to you or that you only imagined.

This means that during hypnosis, the hypnotist can create false memories by asking you questions such as whether there is someone in the room with you.

A study by a Harvard University psychologist also found that while abductees show little evidence to support psychopathology in abductees. Research indicated that these individuals generally do not meet criteria for severe psychiatric impairment, but scored high on measures of schizotypy. Such individuals can be described as eccentric, prone to magical and imaginary thinking, and reclusive. The study concluded that abductees were prone to creating false memories in the lab and were confused about the source of their memories.

This study also made some other tantalizing discoveries. Measurements of sweating, heart rate, and brain waves revealed that those who claim to be abductees show symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome similar to those of war veterans. However, investigators did not conclude that the abductees had experienced combat trauma. Rather, they believe, it is the emotional significance of a memory, whether true or not, that causes sweaty palms and a rapid heartbeat.

You might also find it interesting that alien abduction stories didn’t exist before 1962, and seem to have gained popularity after they were published on TV and in movies. The first film involving an alien abduction was the 1953 film Invaders from Mars, and the television series Outer Limits featured numerous episodes involving alien abduction between 1961 and 1964.

With the information above, you may believe that those who report being abducted by aliens are highly imaginative people who have experienced sleep paralysis and then through hypnotism have recovered false memories of the experience.

There is always the possibility that some sleep paralysis experiences have been misinterpreted by individuals and reported as alien abductions, particularly by susceptible people who have been reading books on aliens and UFOs. But what about those who claim to have been abducted during a waking state?

While there is no evidence to support or refute the alien abduction reports, we would be pretty conceited if we believed that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe, or indeed the most highly evolved. That being said, I still find some of the reported abductions a bit hard to accept from a more evolved being. If I’m studying a monkey, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to want to have sex with it.