What was it like, reading through them? Was it hard to empathize because the claims seemed so outlandish? I went to UFO and abduction conferences and collected surveys over the internet as well. I collected narratives from people from about 1995 to 1998. How did you collect these and are they all from a certain time period? I’ve always been interested in how people make sense of experiences that are marginalized by mainstream culture: paranormal stuff, religious conversation, etcetera.įor your paper “ Mythmaking in Alien Abduction Narratives” you gathered 130 different stories. I didn’t have much time for anything ‘extra’ so I found a way to make aliens a part of my school work! It started with a paper on conspiracy and grew from there. It was the early 1990s and I was into The X-Files and was in graduate school. Then, they extracted sperm from Barney, spoke briefly to the couple, and returned them to their car.What was it about alien abduction narratives that drew you in? They allegedly dragged her and her husband onto their ship, where she said they inserted a needle into her stomach, which they told her was a pregnancy test. While in a trance, Betty recalled seeing the aliens, about 11 or 12 of them, humanoid with cat-like eyes and long slits for mouths. They had no idea how they ended up so far from where they'd started.īetty sought out a psychiatrist, who placed them both under hypnosis. They heard an identical beeping sound and woke, now 35 miles south of the location where they had first spotted the UFO. Scared, Barney sped up until the couple heard a beeping sound and blacked out. They spotted a strange object in the sky that followed their car down the highway. Betty and Barney Hill, a married couple living in New Hampshire in 1961, claimed they encountered over a dozen extraterrestrials while driving home from Niagara Falls the night of Sept.

In one of the most famous and earliest American stories of alien abduction, you'll find it all: a little sex, violence, and mystery. Laugh now, but these abduction stories are so eerily similar, they may turn you into a believer. But if they're anything like the aliens described below, I really hope I never meet them. If there are, I hope they look more like David Tennant in Doctor Who than those terrifying creatures in Prometheus. There very well may be intelligent creatures out there somewhere. Statistically, it seems unlikely that human beings are the only living creatures in the universe. They're surprisingly quite sexual, violent, and sad. You really won't believe these crazy alien abduction stories. Others have some truly disturbing stories to share about alien encounters, in which they were kidnapped and forcefully scrutinized. Some people insist they've seen UFOs or alien species walking around. Ever since humans first looked up at the sky and wondered if we really are alone, there have been stories of aliens flying down from their home galaxies in strange aircraft to meet us. But while we humans have plenty on our plates down here on Earth, there are some among us more concerned with more otherworldly threats than ISIS and global warming. These days, when you think about fearing aliens, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz may come to mind.

Alien abduction stories