abduction
Abduction (abduction by aliens) refers to the phenomenon in which a person claims that unknown beings – often the presumed crew of UFOs – took them against their will and subjected them to examinations.
Abduction (alien abduction in English) refers to an experience in which the person involved remembers being kidnapped by unknown, non-human beings, held inside a craft, and subjected to various examinations – often medical or genetic in nature – and then released with no memory or with fragmentary memories.
Characteristics of the accounts
Abduction accounts often contain similar elements: a nighttime event, a light phenomenon, inability to move, the presence of alien beings, being taken into an enclosed space, a physical examination, and then an absence or blurring of memory. In many cases the experience only "surfaces" in memory later, during hypnosis or therapy, which is a key issue for interpreting the phenomenon.
Early and well-known cases
One of the best-known early cases was the 1961 experience of Betty and Barney Hill, which many regard as the basic template of the abduction narrative. After that, from the 1970s and 1980s onward, more and more similar accounts appeared, partly as a result of the work of researchers and authors (such as Budd Hopkins) who tried to retrieve the alleged memories through hypnosis.
Official and skeptical positions
According to scientific and skeptical researchers, a significant share of abduction experiences is explained by sleep paralysis, hallucination, false memory syndrome, and suggestive memory formation arising during hypnosis. No official government or scientific body has recognized the physical reality of abductions; the phenomenon is studied mainly from a psychological and cultural perspective, while those who have had the experience often describe it as a real and traumatic event.