Belief in Aliens

Do you believe in Aliens?

It's an extraordinary claim. Do you have extraordinary evidence?

Alien Abductions Explained

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/
February 20, 2003

Alien abduction claims examined
By William J. Cromie

Mark H. says he was abducted by aliens. He clearly remembers awakening one night, unable to move anything but his eyes. He saw flashing lights, heard buzzing sounds, experienced feelings of levitation, and felt electric tingling sensations. Most terrifying were the nonhuman figures he saw by his bed.

Mark believes they were aliens.

Later, he underwent hypnosis to try to recall exactly what had happened to him. Under hypnosis, Mark remembered being whisked through an open window to a large spaceship. He was very frightened when aliens took him into some kind of medical examining room. There he had sex with one of them.
Afterward, the aliens brought him back to Earth and returned him to his bed.

Mark describes the experience as terrifying. But did it really happen?

Some researchers at Harvard University devised an experiment to determine if memories of an abduction by space aliens would provoke the same physiological reactions that occur when other people, such as combat veterans and those who survive deadly car accidents, recall their traumatic experiences.

Richard McNally, a professor of psychology, and his colleagues recruited six women and four men who claimed they had been spirited away by extraterrestrials, some of them more than once. Under hypnosis, seven of the 10 reported having had their sperm or eggs extracted for breeding purposes,
or experiencing direct sexual contact with the space aliens.

Each of these people was interviewed by either McNally or Susan Clancy, also a professor of psychology. Each also wrote a script that told the story of
his or her abduction. The research team then made audiotapes, spoken in a neutral voice, from the scripts. The abductees listened to these tapes in the laboratory of Scott Orr at the Veteran's Affairs Medical Center in Manchester, N.H. As the tapes played, the researchers recorded their emotional responses using such measures as heart rate and sweat on the palms of their hands.

The same procedure was done with eight people haunted by traumatic experiences unrelated to abduction by aliens.

When the two sets of measurements were compared, the results were striking. Abductees showed surprisingly strong physiological reactions to the tapes of
their alien encounters. Their reactions were as great or greater than those of individuals who cannot shake memories of combat, sexual abuse, and other punishing events.

McNally announced these findings on Feb. 16 at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver. "The results underscore
the power of emotional belief," he noted. "People who sincerely believe they have been abducted by aliens show patterns of emotional and physiological response to these 'memories' that are strikingly similar to those of people who have been genuinely traumatized by combat or similar events."

Dreaming with their eyes wide open

Neither McNally nor the other Harvard researchers ever considered the possibility that people in the study, or anybody else, was ever abducted by space aliens. But, if not, what produced their lasting vivid memories?

The researchers tie such abduction stories to a phenomenon they call "dreaming with your eyes wide open." The episodes occur just as people awaken
from a dream. Dreams include full-body paralysis, a nice adaptation that prevents people from jumping out of bed to escape their demons, or otherwise
making moves in a dream that could injure them in reality. The sleeper awakens from a dream before the paralysis goes away, and experiences hallucinations like seeing flashing lights and some kinds of living things lurking around the bed.

Sleep paralysis is common and no more indicative of mental illness than a hiccup, the researchers point out. But when the hallucination and paralysis occur together, many people find the combination frightening, and they attempt to find a meaning in it.

Some individuals consult psychiatrists or psychologists who hypnotize them to recover presumably repressed memories that lie behind the strange events.
During such sessions, a person may recover false memories of being transported up into spacecraft where they were subjected to medical and sexual experiments.

Psychological interviews and tests conducted on the abductees reveal little evidence of mental illness, but they enjoy a rich fantasy life. When they listen to music or watch movies they often imagine they are somewhere else or part of the movie plot. The typical abductee, notes McNally, "has a longstanding interest in 'New Age' practices and beliefs such as reincarnation, astral projection, mental telepathy, alternative healing practices, energy therapies, and astrology."

He and his colleagues conclude, "a combination of pre-existing New Age beliefs, episodes of sleep paralysis, accompanied by hallucinations and hypnotic memory recovery may foster beliefs and memories that one has been abducted by space aliens."

Ghost, hags, and incubi

Such combinations give rise to a variety of interpretations across cultures and throughout history, McNally points out. Not everyone who has been scared
by this experience imagines they have been abducted by aliens.

A hallucination upon awakening from a dream might be interpreted as a visit from a ghost or Satan. In Newfoundland, people have encounters with the "Old
Hag," a witch who gets on your bed with you. Hundreds of years ago in Europe, people feared the incubus, an evil spirit that lies on people while they sleep, or the succubus, a demon who assumes a female form and has sex with men in their sleep.

Abductees react emotionally like people who have real memories of combat, abuse, and near-death encounters, but most of them are glad they had contact
with extraterrestrials. Some say they feel pleased to have been chosen to take part in hybrid breeding programs. Most of them, says McNally, "ultimately interpret their experience as spiritually transforming."

Close Encounter?
© Steve Owens, 5th Feb 2003

A fascinating personal experience that happened to my GSC work colleague Steve Owens

I’d like to take a few moments of your time to narrate an actual event that took place last night (Tuesday 4th Feb 2003) as I left work (Glasgow Science Centre). The following is entirely true, and changed my worldview in a big way. I hope you read the whole thing, and don’t dismiss any of it until you’ve read it all.

I worked late last night, leaving about 8pm. It was cold and crisp outside, and the sky was crystal clear. As I walked along the riverside to Bell’s Bridge I was busy looking up at the stars (Orion was up, and both Jupiter and Saturn we clearly visible). I passed a man with a dog and was temporarily distracted. When I looked back up I caught something moving in the sky, near Orion. I’ll explain my observations and thoughts in the order that they happened.

In the first split second that I saw something moving I realised that it was moving at the same speed a satellite would move; that was my first thought, that it was an artificial satellite. That was an initial reaction based on a split second observation, and was due entirely to the speed at which it was moving.

After I focussed on it, I realised that it was orange/red in colour, and figured that it wasn’t a satellite. The next thing I noticed, just moments later, was that it had size. My reaction to that was that it was a trail from a shooting star, a puff of colour as a bit of space rock was vaporised in the upper atmosphere.

I continued to watch though, and it kept moving, at too slow a rate to be a shooting star – it was still moving at satellite-speed. In addition, there was no trail, ruling out shooting stars altogether.

All these observations and thoughts happened within the first second. As I stood craning my neck to watch it, it passed overhead, and I realised that I could make out a shape. It was almost too small to see, but I saw something like this:

It was still travelling at the same speed, roughly east to west, and I turned to watch it pass over the Science Centre. As I watched it I realised that it wasn’t quite travelling in a straight line, it was zigzagging erratically, very fast, back and forth, as it kept moving westward.

Eventually it faded from view, and I was left staring after it, my mouth hanging open. It was totally inexplicable. As an astronomer I’ve spent a lot of time watching the sky and I had never seen anything like this. I was at a total loss to explain it. At that instant I’d seen a UFO. It was totally Unidentified.

However, this lasted for only five seconds. As I stood watching the sky, dumbfounded, I saw another one, following the same path. It was the same colour, the same shape, was moving at the same speed, and zigzagging like before. But this one was bigger. It was bigger because it was lower; low enough in fact that I could see it clearly. It was a bird.

I laughed out loud (attracting a funny look from a passer-by) at how easily fooled I was. Here was me, someone who is used to looking at the night sky, and I saw something I couldn’t explain. I’m about as sceptical as they come, but in those few seconds I was in the same group as the multitude of UFOlogists who claim to have seen just such wing-shaped craft zigging and zagging through the sky in fantastic ways.

But it was just a bird! If I hadn’t seen the second bird, who knows what I’d be writing now. As it is I feel totally privileged. It was as if the Universe looked at me and said; “I’m going to show you something amazing, something that thousands of other people have seen, but that is totally inexplicable… and then, just for you, I’m going to explain.”

Ultimately it has given me a better understanding of people who claim to have seen UFOs. They might quite innocently report just such an observation and be told rudely: “It was just the planet Venus.”

“No,” they’d reply. “I know where Venus is; it wasn’t that.”

“Well, in that case, it was just a bird reflecting light from streetlights below.”

To which the upset reply would be something like: “I think I’d recognise a bird when I see one.”

I didn’t.