A very nice piece from the Harvard Gazette, “Alien abduction claims explained
Sleep paralysis, false memories involved”
By William J. Cromie
Many of the people who believe they have been abducted by aliens are bombarding Susan Clancy with hate e-mails and phone calls. The Harvard researcher, who has spent five years listening to the stories of some 50 abductees, has described her (and their) experiences in a new book to be published in October.
Clancy, 36, likes most of these people. “They are definitely not crazy,” she says. But they do have “a tendency to fantasize and to hold unusual beliefs and ideas. They believe not only in alien abductions, but also in things like UFOs, ESP, astrology, tarot, channeling, auras, and crystal therapy. They also have in common a rash of disturbing experiences for which they are seeking an explanation. For them, alien abduction is the best fit.”
..
“Boy, was I not,” she says in retrospect. “You can’t disprove alien abductions. All you can do is show that evidence is insufficient to justify the belief, and try to understand why people have those beliefs.”
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/09.22/11-alien.html
Of course the usual suspects are going to be screeching and hollering about this. I mean, how dare someone do a study and get results that go against the cannon of abduction believers? “Your science crap has no business reaching conclusions that counter my closely held forgone conclusions? they will probably shout. “Unless it validates my belief system it’s just closed minded, skeptical, canted, worker-bee, idiotic, debunkie, crap!
“Isn’t it time,” (they might say) “that we just chuck all this stupid research and let the gurus of the UFO field just tell everyone how things work?” Why; we can spend endless happy hours arguing what kind of toothpaste aliens use once we stop trying to prove that they exist at all.”
It’s so much easier to be mindless isn’t it?