Lecture 7: The Psychology of Alien Contact and Abduction Claims

Lecture 7: The Psychology of Alien Contact and Abduction Claims Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Psychological approaches to alien contact and abduction claims 3. Related anomalous memory effects 4. Conclusion

UFOs: The Modern Era • 1947: Kenneth Arnold’s sighting • 1952: • Major wave of sightings • Project Bluebook • First report of human-ET contact (Adamski) • 1957: First abduction claim (Boas) • 1961: Hills’ classic abduction claim

Types of Close Encounter (CE) Astronomer J Allen Hynek, astronomer (sceptic turned believer), proposed the following classification: • CE1: Sightings • CE2: Physical evidence (photographs, marks on the ground, radar, etc.) • CE3: Human-ET contact • CE4 added: Abduction

Close Encounters of the First Kind • UFO = Unidentified Flying Object • ET = Extraterrestrial • UFO does not equal ET • 95% of sightings have prosaic explanations • Celestial objects, e.g., Venus • Aeroplanes • Satellites

UFO sighting, Ohio, 1966 “if two police cars really were chasing a large UFO only hundreds of feet above the road, one might reasonably expect that other independent witnesses would have seen the same object. In fact, the chase was twice slowed by early morning traffic. Yet none of the hundreds of people who saw the speeding police cars reported seeing the UFO they were chasing.” (p. 177).

Close Encountersof the Second Kind • Physical evidence in addition to sighting • Photographs • Other objects seen from unusual angles • Blemishes produced during processing • Artefacts of digital photography, cf. “orbs” • Deliberate hoaxes • “Landing marks” • Radar

Close Encountersof the Third Kind • George Adamski claimed to have met a visitor from Venus in the Californian desert in 1952 • Claimed he was taken for a ride in her spaceship • Wrote bestsellers about his adventures

Close Encountersof the Fourth Kind • Antonio Villas Boas claimed he was abducted by aliens in 1957 in Brazil • Taken on board spaceship • Seduced by female alien – who made “barking” noises during sex!

Betty and Barney Hill, 1961 • Driving from Montreal to New Hampshire in September 1961 • Saw a UFO • Barney got out of the car to investigate • Saw alien faces through the windows of the UFO • Got scared and drove home • Arrived home two hours later than expected – “missing time” • Betty began having dreams of being taken on board the spaceship

Years later… • Hills consulted a psychiatrist, Dr Benjamin Simon, with respect to marital problems • Under hypnosis, relived full abduction experience • Car had been stopped by aliens • Taken on board spaceship, medically examined • Betty shown “star map” of trade routes

The Hills’ “Abduction”: 1 • the "UFO" was in fact the planet Jupiter • the "missing time" was reported inconsistently, was not noticed until weeks later (after questioning by UFOlogists) and, besides, the Hills had taken a tortuous route

The Hills’ Abduction: 2 • hypnosis is not a reliable means for recovering memories (the psychiatrist who carried out the hypnosis in this case did not believe the accounts produced) • the star map does not actually bear any close resemblance to any particular group of stars

Whitley Strieber • Two best-selling books published in 1987 led to further interest in alien abductions – and an increase in the number of claims • Whitley Strieber’s Communion was the “true” story of the author’s own experiences • Strieber was a successful writer of horror stories with a vivid imagination • Philip Klass (1988) presented critique, pointing out that Strieber claimed to have had many unusual experiences • attacked by skeleton on a motorbike when he was 12 • claimed to have been present during sniper attack – later admitted he had just made it up

Budd Hopkins • New York artist, published Intruders also in 1987 • Claimed alien abduction much more common than realised • Involved sexual abuse as part of cross-breeding project • Places great emphasis upon “missing time” and uses hypnosis to “retrieve” memories

Blackmore’s (1994) Composite Abduction Scenario (1) I woke up in the middle of the night and everything looked odd and strangely lit. At the end of my bed was a 4 feet high grey alien. Its spindly, thin body supported a huge head with two enormous, slanted, liquid black eyes. It compelled me, telepathically, to follow and led me into a spaceship, along curved corridors to an examination room full of tables on which people lay.

Blackmore’s (1994) Composite Abduction Scenario (2) I was forced to lie down while they painfully examined me, extracted ova (or sperm) and implanted something in my nose. I could see jars containing half-human, half-alien fetuses and a nursery full of silent, sickly children. When I eventually found myself back in bed, several hours had gone by.

Common Themes • Mostly “greys” these days • Tours of the aliens’ ship • Trips to other planets • Receipt of messages to humanity, often involving warnings of future destruction through pollution or nuclear war • Abduction scenario is part of our culture

Incidence • Strieber (1998) claimed to have received almost a quarter of a million letters from individuals claiming alien contact • It is often claimed that many more people have experienced alien abduction than actually report it because • people know that they will be ridiculed if they tell others of their bizarre experience • it is claimed that the aliens are able to erase the memories of the abductees for the experience

The Roper Poll (N = 6000)Hopkins, Jacobs & Westrum, 1992 • Waking up paralysed with a sense of a strange person or presence or something else in the room. [18%] • Experiencing a period of time of an hour or more in which you were apparently lost, but you could not remember why or where you had been. [13%] • Feeling that you were actually flying through the air although you didn’t know how or why. [10%]

The Roper Poll (cont.) • Seeing unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was causing them or where they came from. [8%] • Finding puzzling scars on your body and neither you nor anyone else remembering how you received them or where you got them. [8%]

Interpretation of Roper Poll • Hopkins et al. (1992) claimed that if you said “yes” to four or more of these items, you had probably been abducted by aliens • 2% of their sample • Extrapolated to 3.7 million Americans! • 340 every day since 1961 (Klass, 1997)?! • Actual number of people with abduction memories far less than that – but still thousands of people worldwide

Are Claimants Lying? • Motivations • Financial? • Social? Occasional hoaxes (e.g., Travis Walton) but most claimants appear to be sincere and avoid any kind of publicity

Evidence for ET Hypothesis • Missing Embryo/Foetus Syndrome • no convincing documented cases • Alien implants • mundane explanation • “disappear” before scientific analysis

Psychopathology? (1) • Major psychopathology is no more common amongst abductees than the general population • Bartholomew, Basterfield, & Howard, 1991 • Bloecher, Clamar, & Hopkins, 1985 • Mack, 1994 • Parnell & Sprinkle, 1990 • Rodeghier et al., 1991 • Spanos, Cross, Dickson, & DuBreuil, 1993

Psychopathology? (2) • Parnell and Sprinkle (1990): those who claimed to have communicated with aliens “had a significantly greater tendency to endorse unusual feelings, thoughts, and attitudes; to be suspicious or distrustful; and to be creative, imaginative, or possibly have schizoid tendencies”

Psychopathology? (3) • Rodeghier et al. (1991): relatively higher levels of loneliness, unhappiness, and poorer sleep patterns. • Mack (1994) and Ring & Rosing (1990): high levels of childhood trauma.

Psychopathology? (4) • Ring & Rosing (1990): also reported that, as children, abductees were more sensitive to “non-ordinary realities”. • Stone-Carmen (1994) found that 57% of her sample of abductees reported suicide attempts.

The Fantasy-Prone Personality(Wilson & Barber, 1983) • Fantasy-prone personalities are typically excellent hypnotic subjects, but are also noted for their profound fantasy lives. They spend a great deal of their time fantasising and report that when they imagine something, it appears to them “as real as real”.

The Fantasy-Prone Personality (cont.) • The hallucinatory nature of their fantasies leads to frequent confusions between imagination and reality. In line with typical abductees, these individuals often report paranormal experiences of various types and often believe themselves to be psychic.

Are Abductees Fantasy-Prone? (1) • Biographical analyses tend to support the link (e.g., Bartholomew et al., 1991; Nickell, 1997). Characteristics noted include reports of psychic phenomena, out-of-body experiences, healing, apparitions, hypnotic susceptibility, and physiological effects. • BUT ...

Are Abductees Fantasy-Prone? (2) • Studies comparing groups directly with questionnaire measures have typically not found differences (e.g., Rodeghier et al., 1991; Spanos et al., 1993) except for French et al. (2008) • Ring & Rosing (1990) reported that UFO experiencers were not generally more fantasy-prone, but as children were more sensitive to “non-ordinary realities” (?)

Dissociation • Dissociative tendencies (i.e., the tendency for some mental processes to temporarily “split off” from the normal stream of consciousness) have been shown to be higher in those claiming alien contact than in control groups (e.g., Powers, 1994; French et al., 2008).

Dissociation andChildhood Trauma • Tendency to dissociate is associated with histories of childhood trauma which in turn are correlated with fantasy proneness • It has been argued that the tendency to dissociate is a defensive mechanism which allows traumatised children to escape the unbearable reality of their lives by entering a more acceptable fantasy world.

Fantasy-Proneness, Childhood Trauma & the Paranormal • Possible explanations: • fantasy-prone individuals have appropriate psychological profile to experience genuine paranormal events OR • fantasy-prone individuals imagine paranormal events but think they are real • with fantasy-proneness developing as defence mechanism as previously described OR • reports of childhood trauma are themselves fantasies

Hypnotic Regression • Used by many investigators (e.g., Hopkins, Mack) to “unlock” repressed memories of abduction, but ... • … it actually encourages the production of fantasy-based narratives which are then believed in as if they were memories for events which actually occurred.

Spanos et al. (1994) People who believe that they might have been abducted by aliens but cannot remember, or who dream of aliens or experience gaps in memory that they are unable to explain, sometimes undergo hypnotic (or non-hypnotic) interviews aimed at uncovering “hidden memories” of their alien abduction (Jacobs, 1992; Klass, 1989). Frequently, the interviews include two phases.

Spanos et al. (1994) cont. In the first phase background information is obtained and clients are asked about unusual or inexplicable experiences that have occurred during their life. These include “missing time” experiences, unusual or bizarre dreams, and experiences that suggest hypnagogic imagery or sleep paralysis (e.g., having seen a ghost, strange lights, or a monster).

Spanos et al. (1994) cont. Such experiences are defined as distorted memories of alien abduction that call for further probing (Jacobs & Hopkins, 1992). Moreover, making such experiences salient enhances the likelihood that some of their characteristics (e.g., paralysis, feelings of suffocation) will be incorporated into any abduction memories that are recalled in Phase 2. Phase 2 typically involves hypnotic or non-hypnotic guided imagery employed to facilitate recall.

Spanos et al. (1994) cont. This may involve leading questions (Baker, 1992), or the subject may be pressed repeatedly for more details (Jacobs, 1992). In addition, subjects may be informed that some material is so deeply hidden that several such interviews are required. Subjects who have difficulty “remembering” some or all of their abduction are defined as “blocking” and are provided with strategies for facilitating recall. These include asking subjects to imagine a curtain and then to peek behind it to view their abduction, or to imagine a movie screen on which they see their abduction replayed (Jacobs & Hopkins, 1992).

Lawson’s (1984) “Imaginary Abductees” • They “readily respond[ed] to an initial suggestion with an elaborate and detailed story, with little need for prodding along the way, […] the contents bore striking similarities to alleged real abductions, both in more obvious matters and in odd, minute details” (Bullard, 1989)

Susceptibility to False Memories • Clancy, McNally, Schacter, Lenzenweger, and Pitman (2002) used DRM to compare three groups: • those with conscious memories of alien abduction • those who believed themselves to have been abducted but had no memories of it • those who did not claim to have been abducted • Abductees most susceptible to false memories

The Bial “Experiencer” Project • French, Santomauro, Hamilton, Fox, & Thalbourne (2008) • Experiencers scored higher than matched controls on dissociativity, absorption, fantasy proneness and measures of paranormal belief and experience • No significant differences on direct measure of susceptibility to false memories (DRM task) • Experiencers also reported higher incidence of sleep paralysis

Sleep Paralysis • Waking up unable to move, often accompanied by … • a terrifying sense of a malign presence • hypnagogic/hypnopompic imagery • auditory/visual hallucinations (lights, strange figures) • pressure on the chest • floating sensations

Cheyne, Rueffer, & Newby-Clark, 1999 (1) “One factor, labeled Intruder, consisting of sensed presence, fear, and auditory and visual hallucinations, is conjectured to originate in a hypervigilant state initiated in the midbrain. Another factor, Incubus, comprising pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties, and pain, is attributed to effects of hyperpolarization of motoneurons on perceptions of respiration.”

Cheyne, Rueffer, & Newby-Clark, 1999 (2) “These two factors have in common an implied alien ‘other’ consistent with occult narratives identified in numerous contemporary and historical cultures. A third factor, labeled Unusual Bodily Experiences, consisting of floating/flying sensations, out-of-body experiences, and feelings of bliss, is related to physically impossible experiences generated by conflicts of endogenous and exogenous activation related to body position, orientation, and movement”.

Cross-Cultural Interpretations of ASP • Newfoundland – the “Old Hag” • Japan – “kanashibari” • St Lucia – “kokma” • Europe in the Middle Ages – incubus and succubus

Temporal Lobe Activity and Tectonic Strain Theory (1) • Michael Persinger (e.g., 1990) believes that many ostensibly paranormal experiences reflect unusual activity in the temporal lobes • Temporal lobe epilepsy is associated with odd sensations, déjà vu, hallucinations, out-of-body experiences.

Temporal Lobe Activity and Tectonic Strain Theory (2) • Persinger claims he can artificially induce similar firing patterns in the temporal lobes leading to reports of unusual sensations (e.g., Blackmore, 1994) and even the subjective appearance of apparitions (Persinger, Tiller, & Koren, 2000). • But Granqvist et al. (2005) failed to replicate such effects and claimed that Persinger’s results were best explained in terms of suggestibility of participants and poor double-blind procedures (Persinger rejected this)

Temporal Lobe Activity and Tectonic Strain Theory (3) • There is evidence to suggest that reputedly “haunted” locations are associated with unusual patterns of electromagnetic activity (see French, Haque, Bunton-Stasyshyn, & Davis, in press,Cortex, for review) but results inconsistent

Temporal Lobe Activity and Tectonic Strain Theory (4) • 79 volunteers exposed to unusual EMFs, infrasound, both or neither for 50 mins • Unusual sensations and experiences recorded • Many participants reported unusual sensations (e.g., sense of presence, terror, etc) but… • … unrelated to condition! • Was related to score on TLS scale – which correlates with suggestibility

Lecture 7: The Psychology of Alien Contact and Abduction Claims