Mainstream scientists reject claims that the phenomenon literally occurs as reported. However, there is little doubt that many apparently stable persons who report alien abductions believe their experiences were real. As reported in the Harvard University Gazette in 1992, Dr. John E. Mack reports that of the 60 cases of claimed abductees he had worked on, that after a battery of psychological tests, "no psychiatric or psychosocial explanation for these reports is evident. These people are not mentally ill. He has spent countless therapeutic hours with these individuals only to find that what struck him was the 'ordinariness' of the population, including a restaurant owner, several secretaries, a prison guard, college students, a university administrator, and several homemakers … 'The majority of abductees do not appear to be deluded, confabulating, lying, self-dramatizing, or suffering from a clearmental illness,' he maintained."[9]"While psychopathology is indicated in some isolated alien abduction cases,"Stuart Appelle et al. confirmed, "assessment by both clinical examination and standardized tests has shown that, as a group, abduction experients are not different from the general population in term of psychopathology prevalence."[10] Other experts who have argued that abductees' mental health is no better or worse than average include psychologists John Wilson and Rima Laibow, and psychotherapist David Gotlib.[11]
Some abduction reports are quite detailed. An entire subculture has developed around the subject, withsupport groups and a detailed mythosexplaining the reasons for abductions: The various aliens (Greys, Reptilians, "Nordics" and so on) are said to have specific roles, origins, and motivations. Abduction claimants do not always attempt to explain the phenomenon, but some take independent research interest in it themselves and explain the lack of greater awareness of alien abduction as the result of eitherextraterrestrial or governmental interest in cover-up. Mack has cited more mundane reasons for the lack of general awareness concerning the data: "The most intense demand for alternative explanations tends to come from those who are either unfamiliar with the rich complexity of the abduction phenomenon, or from those who are so wedded to a worldview" that they find the phenomenon prima facieunacceptable.[12]
History
Main article: History of alien abduction claims
The Antonio Vilas Boas case (1957) and the Hill abduction (1961) were the first cases of UFO abduction to earn widespread attention.
Though these two cases are sometimes viewed as the earliest abductions, skeptic Peter Rogerson[13] notes they were only the first"canonical"[clarification needed] abduction cases, establishing a template that later abductees and researchers would refine but rarely deviate from. Additionally, Rogerson notes purported abductions were cited contemporaneously at least as early as 1954, and that "the growth of the abduction stories is a far more tangled affair than the 'entirely unpredisposed' official history would have us believe." (The phrase "entirely unpredisposed" appeared in folklorist Thomas E. Bullard's study of alien abduction; he argued that alien abductions as reported in the 1970s and 1980s had little precedent in folklore or fiction.)
Paleo-abductions
While "alien abduction" did not achieve widespread attention until the 1960s, there were many similar stories circulating decades earlier. These early abduction-like accounts have been dubbed "paleo-abductions" by UFO researcher Jerome Clark.[14]
- In the November 27, 1896 edition of the Stockton, California Daily Mail, Colonel H. G. Shaw claimed he and a friend were harassed by three tall, slender humanoids whose bodies were covered with a fine, downy hair who tried to kidnap the pair.[14]
- Rogerson writes that the 1955 publication of Harold T. Wilkins's Flying Saucers Uncensored declared that Karl Hunrath and Wilbur Wilkinson, who had claimed they were contacted by aliens, had disappeared under mysterious circumstances; Wilkins reported speculation that the duo were the victims of "alleged abduction by flying saucers".[13]
Contactees
Main article: Contactee
The UFO contactees of the 1950s claimed to have contacted aliens, and the substance of contactee narratives – in which the beings express the intent to help mankind stop nuclear testing and prevent the otherwise inevitable destruction of the human race.
Two landmark cases
An early alien abduction claim occurred in the mid-1950s with the Antonio Vilas Boas case, which did not receive much attention until several years later.
Widespread publicity was generated by the Betty and Barney Hill abductioncase of 1961, culminating in a made-for-television film broadcast in 1975 (starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons) dramatizing the events. The Hill incident was probably the prototypical abduction case and was perhaps the first in which the claimant described beings that later became widely known as the Greys and in which the beings were said to explicitly identify an extraterrestrial origin.
Later developments
Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle (University of Wyoming psychologist) became interested in the abduction phenomenon in the 1960s. For some years, he was probably the only academic figure devoting any time to studying or researching abduction accounts. Sprinkle became convinced of the phenomenon's actuality, and was perhaps the first to suggest a link between abductions and cattle mutilation. Eventually Sprinkle came to believe that he had been abducted by aliens in his youth; he was forced from his job in 1989.[15]
Budd Hopkins had been interested in UFOs for some years. In the 1970s he became interested in abduction reports, and began using hypnosis to extract more details of dimly remembered events. Hopkins soon became a figurehead of the growing abductee subculture.[16]
The 1980s brought a major degree of mainstream attention to the subject. Works by Budd Hopkins, novelistWhitley Strieber, historian David M. Jacobs and psychiatrist John E. Mack presented alien abduction as a genuine phenomenon.[16] Also of note in the 1980s was the publication of folklorist Dr. Thomas E. Bullard's comparative analysis of nearly 300 alleged abductees.
With Hopkins, Jacobs and Mack, accounts of alien abduction became a prominent aspect of ufology. There had been earlier abduction reports (the Hills being the best known), but they were believed to be few and far between, and saw rather little attention from ufology(and even less attention from mainstream professionals or academics). Jacobs and Hopkins argued that alien abduction was far more common than earlier suspected; they estimate that tens of thousands (or more) North Americans had been taken by unexplained beings.[16]
Furthermore, Jacobs and Hopkins argued that there was an elaborate process underway in which aliens were attempting to create human–alienhybrids, the most advanced stage of which in the "human hybridization program" are known as hubrids[17] (aportmanteau of human and hybrids), though the motives for this effort were unknown. There had been anecdotal reports of phantom pregnancy related to UFO encounters at least as early as the 1960s, but Budd Hopkins and especially David M. Jacobs were instrumental in popularizing the idea of widespread, systematic interbreeding efforts on the part of the alien intruders.
The descriptions of alien encounters as researched and presented by Hopkins, Jacobs and Mack were similar, with slight differences in each researcher's emphasis; the process of selective citation of abductee interviews that supported these variations was sometimes criticized – though abductees who presented their own accounts directly, such as Whitley Strieber, fared no better.
The involvement of Jacobs and Mack marked something of a sea change in the abduction studies. Their efforts were controversial (both men saw some degree of damage to their professional reputations), but to other observers, Jacobs and Mack brought a degree of respectability to the subject.
John E. Mack
Matheson writes that "if Jacobs's credentials were impressive," then those of Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack might seem "impeccable" in comparison.[18] Mack was a well known, highly esteemed psychiatrist, author of over 150 scientific articles and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his biography ofT. E. Lawrence. Mack became interested in the phenomenon in the late 1980s, interviewing over 800 people, and eventually writing two books on the subject.
John E. Mack devoted a substantial amount of time to investigating such cases and eventually concluded that the only phenomenon in psychiatry that adequately explained the patients' symptoms in several of the most compelling cases was posttraumatic stress disorder.[19] As he noted at the time, this would imply that the patient genuinely believed that the remembered frightening incident had really occurred – the position Mack came to endorse.[20]
In June 1992, Mack and the physicistDavid E. Pritchard organized a five-day conference at MIT to discuss and debate the abduction phenomenon.[21]The conference attracted a wide range of professionals, representing a variety of perspectives. As their thanks for their efforts to focus a modest level of serious scientific attention on the perplexing "abduction" phenomenon by organizing this conference, Mack and Jacobs were awarded an Ig Nobel Prizein 1993.
Writer C. D. B. Bryan attended the conference, initially intending to gather information for a short humorous article for The New Yorker. While attending the conference, however, Bryan's view of the subject changed, and he wrote a serious, open-minded book on the phenomenon, additionally interviewing many abductees, skeptics, and proponents.
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