twenty years reports of more hostile encounters have increased, with abductions of a very violent nature. This may say more about our cultural criteria than about EBEs. Scientific knowledge may also have played a role in the changing experiences of CE3s and CE4s. During the 1950s and 1960s EBEs described their origins within the solar system, but as knowledge of the solar system grew, and the likelihood of life on nearby planets decreased, then EBEs were reported from further afield and many reports are obscure regarding their origins. Although there are many abduction reports, almost all have a strong imaginary element.
Reports of abduction by EBEs are numerous and one investigator, Jenny Randles (1988), described the problem as involving near epidemic proportions from people of many different backgrounds. Susan Blackmore (1994a) refers to a survey which reports that 4 million Americans have claimed to have experienced an alien abduction. A report in the Observer (30 June 1996: 15) stated that up to 150,000 Americans are insured against abduction by extraterrestrials. However, the author noted that it is not clear as to how someone could make a claim if it happened or whether a large number of claims would push up the premiums. One frequently cited abduction involves the US Ufologist, Linda Napolitano, with two security guards and a ‘third man’ – alleged to be the former UN Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar. His excellency denies the abduction (Sweeney, 1995: 25). But are these abduction reports something to be explained or explained away? Are they real or a new form of psychosis? If real, then to what kind of reality do these abduction reports refer? What kind of experience is an abduction experience?
To date, the physical evidence supporting abduction reports is inadequate. Wounds and scars in themselves offer no proof that they were caused by EBEs. Abductees often report that EBEs have placed implants in their bodies, but these are either expelled or lost. So far, examinations of stains on the clothing of abductees have not proven to be of extraterrestrial origins, and no extraterres-trial artefacts have been identified.
Early abduction or CE4 accounts appeared in the 1950s in the books by George Adamski, Flying Saucers Have Landed and Inside the Spaceships, where the author recounted his visits to Venus and the far side of the Moon where he saw rivers and plants. Adamski’s stories, and many that followed, bear little resemblance to modern CE4 accounts and abduction experiences. Many abductees recall their experiences under hypnosis, where accounts of medical examination are revealed. It should be noted that hypnosis is not a guarantee of truthful reporting, as such recollection need not be ‘real’ lived in the world experiences, but rather recollections of mental images.
Appeals to the phenomenon of ‘false memory syndrome’ challenge the validity of evidence derived from interviews conducted under hypnosis as well as those conducted with conscious abductees. Studies have shown (Blackmore, 1994b) how the imagination can help to reconstruct memories. Sleep paralysis has also been proposed as a possible explanation, where the dream mechanisms operate while the body is paralysed. The problem with this explanation is that
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many abductees report experiences that occurred when they were awake. Susan Blackmore (1994b) investigated research by Michael Persinger, a neuroscientist at Laurentian University of Sudbury, Ontario, who claims that abduction experiences, along with other psychic experiences such as out of body experiences (OBEs), are linked in some way to excessive bursts of electrical activity in the temporal lobes. According to this explanation, people with a ‘high temporal lobe lability’, prone to unstable temporal lobes and frequent bursts of electrical activity which can be seen on an EEG, fall into the category of abductees. At present this explanation does not have sufficient power to rule out other explanations of abduction experiences. As Blackmore notes, Persinger’s observations ‘are nothing more than correlations’. Moreover, those who believe that there have been genuine abductions point out that many abductees do not score high on measures of temporal lobe lability. But at present, the main objection is that not enough tests have been carried out to support either Persinger or those who offer other explanations.
Nevertheless, Persinger has sought an element of predictability in his attempts to simulate abduction experiences. Blackmore describes his experiments involving the application of magnetic fields across the brain which have produced strong emotions of anger, fear, and a sense of being physically manipulated. Were a similar experience felt outside of a laboratory it may well be possible, says Blackmore, for it to be ‘remembered’ as an abduction, especially if the abductee was ‘cued’ by a hypnotist or interviewer.
Randles (1988) outlines several common features in modern abduction reports. First, there is the phenomenon of missing time, where a sense of time is lost as in a fantasy state, or some form of sensory deprivation experience. Randles describes this as the ‘Oz factor’, after the experiences depicted in the film The Wizard of Oz. It is, however, a notorious feature of abduction reports that many are associated with long night-time driving, which amounts to a form of sensory deprivation. Second, it has been noted that under hypnosis many ‘witnesses’ recall childhood CE4 experiences. Third, many reports echo familiar SF stories and films, but do so selectively. There are no reported encounters with Mr Spock, the Klingons and other popular aliens. Fourth, many of the ‘witnesses’ have good relations with publishers, although many have been destroyed by the attendant publicity and ridicule.
Randles discerns a pattern to the abduction reports. They begin with the capture, then move on to the examination, and then various exchanges which may often include a message, and then the experience ends. Abduction accounts, she argues, unlike myths and folk stories, do not follow national stereotypes. The description range of EBEs is narrow: they are usually three and a half feet tall, with big round or pear-shaped heads, round eyes and slit noses and mouths. They can also be six feet tall, thin, Nordic, beautiful and blond. The small ones are unfriendly, although not frequently hostile; whereas the tall are magical, philosophical, and enjoy communicating messages (Randles, 1988: 181–2). According to Randles, abduction experiences are some kind of ‘objectified
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