Alien abduction

UFOs and ufology
Notable sightings and hoaxes
Kenneth Arnold sighting 1947 wave Roswell Mantell crash Chiles-Whitted Gorman dogfight McMinnville photos Mariana film 1952 flap Sightings in outer space Flatwoods monster Barney and Betty Hill Travis Walton Rendlesham Forest Belgian wave Alien autopsy hoax Phoenix Lights Pentagon UFO videos
Government investigations
Operação Prato - Brazil Project Magnet - Canada GEIPAN - France Institute 22 - Soviet Union Flying Saucer Working Party - UK Project Condign - UK History of government investigations - US All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office - US NASA's UAP independent study team - US Condon Committee - US Project Blue Book - US
Conspiracy theories
Area 51 Bob Lazar Majestic 12 Men in black Serpo
Religions
Aetherius Society Church of the SubGenius Heaven's Gate Nation of Islam Raëlism Scientology Unarius Academy of Science
Lists of organizations, sightings, studies, etc.
UFO organizations Reported UFO sightings Sightings by country Investigations of UFOs by governments Identification studies of UFOs Ufologists Alleged extraterrestrial beings
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alien abduction (also called abduction phenomenon, alien abduction syndrome, or UFO abduction) refers to the phenomenon of people reporting what they believe to be the real experience of being kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings and subjected to physical and psychological experimentation.^[1] People claiming to have been abducted are usually called "abductees"^[2] or "experiencers". Most scientists and mental health professionals explain these experiences by factors such as suggestibility (e.g. false memory syndrome), sleep paralysis, deception, and psychopathology.^[3] Skeptic Robert Sheaffer sees similarity between some of the aliens described by abductees and those depicted in science fiction films, in particular Invaders From Mars (1953).^[4]

Typical claims involve forced medical examinations that emphasize the subject's reproductive systems.^[5] Abductees sometimes claim to have been warned against environmental abuses and the dangers of nuclear weapons,^[6] or to have engaged in interspecies breeding.^[7] The contents of the abduction narrative often seem to vary with the home culture of the alleged abductee.^[4] Unidentified flying objects (UFOs), alien abduction, and mind control plots can also be part of radical political apocalyptic and millenarian narratives.^[8]

Reports of the abduction phenomenon have been made all around the world, but are most common in English-speaking countries, especially the United States.^[4] The first alleged alien abduction claim to be widely publicized was the Betty and Barney Hill abduction in 1961.^[9] UFO abduction claims have declined since their initial surge in the mid-1970s, and alien abduction narratives have found less popularity in mainstream media. Skeptic Michael Shermer proposed that the ubiquity of camera phones increases the burden of evidence for such claims and may be a cause for their decline.^[10]