Narratives on Alien Abduction

Major corporations such as General Motors, AT&T, Pepsi-Cola, and Mars Candies run expensive TV commercials showing aliens coming to earth to steal our consumer products (thereby implying their products’ desirability). These events-along with extensive Internet coverage-indicate the degree to which alien-abduction narratives (AANs) have seized the public imagination. Although reports of visitations and abductions of humans by strange creatures have apparently occurred throughout recorded history, modern researchers agree that these reports have dramatically increased since 1947 in the case of UFO “sightings” and since 1966 for abduction narratives.

The year 1966 also saw the publication of John Fuller’s The Interrupted Journey, the abduction story of Betty and Barney Hill that is still considered paradigmatic for the modern form of the alien-abduction narrative. One of the most popular and influential explanations of AANs is that UFO stories constitute the basis of a new mythology that is developing in our highly technological age.

An AAN can refer to a single experience or to a group of experiences. They usually involve a claim that someone took the narrators out of their beds (or cars) and subjected them to medical examinations and other unusual experiences. In a typical AAN scenario, one or more individuals either come forward voluntarily, or they contact and are then interviewed by a specialist in this type of phenomenon. In each case, a narrative is presented consisting of a report of being kidnapped and experimented upon by “alien” creatures. Frequently, these accounts include expressions of trauma and terror as the “victims” are subjected to painful or humiliating procedures.

Several individuals have emerged to play leading roles as advisers to these narrators, who in many cases are alleged to display symptoms characteristic of post-traumatic stress disorder. These advisers include artist Budd Hopkins, historian Dr.David Jacobs, author Whitley Strieber,Harvard University psychiatrist John Mack, and clinical social worker John Carpenter, to name a few. During the modern period of narratives about alien beings, several labels have been advanced to identify a person presenting some type of AAN.All of them introduce serious epistemological and methodological difficulties. In order to be precise about the subject matter under consideration, the term “narrator” is proposed to overcome some of these problems.

Since the early 1950s, some have been called “contactees.” These include George Adamski, George King, and, more recently, Billy Meier. The characteristics of their narratives include: