Alien 'abductees' show symptoms

[sadluxation]

The BBC Science web-page has an interesting article of so-called alien abductees suffering from trauma after their experiences:

Abductee's trauma (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2003/denver_2003/2769875.stm)

[RichardR]

"Most of them had pre-existing new-age beliefs - they were into bio-energetic therapies, past lives, astral projection, tarot cards, and so on," he said.

"Second, they have episodes of apparent sleep paralysis accompanied by hallucinations."

These frightening experiences usually prompted the individuals to visit therapists, who would frequently suggest alien abduction as a cause - an explanation which the abductees readily accepted, he said.

If anyone asks you why we need critical thinking - there's your answer. :D

[arSenic]

Who is more crazy: the patient or the therapist? Guess it takes a crazy one to know one.

[arcticpenguin]

Another strike against Intelligent Design and dualism - there's a lot of people out there whose brains just don't work all that well.

[Frostbite]

I agree that we must approach these accounts with extreme skepticism, as they're a lot of people wanting media attention and sensationalism, but still, if we're to ignore all evidence in favor of UFO abduction and concentrate only on those against, are we really making progress? Well I guess that works both ways anyway...

[Wolverine]

Originally posted by Frostbite
... if we're to ignore all evidence in favor of UFO abduction...

To what evidence are you referring?

[Wolverine]

*cough* Um, seriously... what evidence?

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Wolverine
*cough* Um, seriously... what evidence?

I think you've been provided the bulk of it..:D

[Wolverine]

:D

[MartinGibbs]

Evidence.

I vote to see the evidence, please.

Oh, there it is... right here.

... crap, anectodotal doesn't weigh in well. darn.

[sickstan]

This sounds like cataplexy. It's a phenomenon seen in narcoleptics and it's essentially being aware during REM sleep just before awakening. The episodes are frightening to the dreamer because they are absolutely paralyzed while they are awake and aware. These events are often characterized by hallucinations. As you may know, in REM sleep, the body's skeletal muscles are paralyzed except for respiratory muscles. This is to protect the organism from injuring him/herself during dreaming (imagine flailing about when you dream you're falling!). Also, an interesting phenomenon in narcoleptics is that they have exceptionally vivid and pervasive dreams. Some of these occur at the edges of sleep, and can be indistinguishable from reality (hypnagogic states).

I suspect that I have some of the symptoms of narcolepsy, since I dream floridly and vividly from the time I fall asleep until I awake. I can usually recall dreams in color in the morning. If you wake me a minute or two after falling asleep, I'll recall a dream to you, sometimes vivid and significantly time-dilated. I'm also excessively sleepy during the daytime and require several hundred milligrams of caffeine in order to stay alert during the day.

[MartinGibbs]

Originally posted by sickstan
Some of these occur at the edges of sleep, and can be indistinguishable from reality (hypnagogic states).


There are times I wake up screaming or yelling or punching--I've seen bricks flying, snakes hanging from the ceiling, a guy with a machine gun, the can being attacked by a monkey.

It's kinda cool because I knew I had to be dreaming--but it can scare the hell out of my wife.

[Frostbite]

Originally posted by Wolverine


To what evidence are you referring?

Well... err... a bunch of people saying they were abducted by UFO's? Can we afford to dismiss that? They all see more or less the same thing. I like the hallucinations theory but it's weird that they all see the same thing, unless these specific hallucinations are etched in our collective subconscious or as a result of cultural influence.

[Keneke]

Originally posted by Frostbite
They all see more or less the same thing. I like the hallucinations theory but it's weird that they all see the same thing, unless these specific hallucinations are etched in our collective subconscious or as a result of cultural influence.
That, and the fact that humans all work the same way. We all have "lost time" and sleep paralysis. They just choose to use a weird-ass theory. The fact that it almost always happens when the abductee is in an altered state doesn't help either.

Hey MartinGibbs, I see snakes too. I think we're on to something!

[RichardR]

Originally posted by Frostbite


Well... err... a bunch of people saying they were abducted by UFO's? Can we afford to dismiss that? They all see more or less the same thing. I like the hallucinations theory but it's weird that they all see the same thing, unless these specific hallucinations are etched in our collective subconscious or as a result of cultural influence. These are anecdotes, not evidence.

[Frostbite]

Call it whatever you like, but I'm not sure dismissing them all is a good idea.

[Wolverine]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Please read this article (http://www.skepdic.com/aliens.html) as well as the collection of links at the bottom of the page.

[RichardR]

Originally posted by Wolverine
The plural of anecdote is not data.

Please read this article (http://www.skepdic.com/aliens.html) as well as the collection of links at the bottom of the page. You beat me to the punch. ;)

Frostbite: if all we have is anecdotes, why should we take them seriously? And if alien abductions (thousands of them) were real, why don't we have any real evidence?

[Roadtoad]

Originally posted by RichardR
You beat me to the punch. ;)

Frostbite: if all we have is anecdotes, why should we take them seriously? And if alien abductions (thousands of them) were real, why don't we have any real evidence?

Wow, you don't believe someone like Whitley Streiber!?!?! Man, you ARE a skeptic!:D

(I'm sorry! I always laugh...!)

[Frostbite]

Ok whatever, forget it.

[MartinGibbs]

I used to love listening to Art Bell and Strieber--what entertainment. Then I realized people actually believed all that stuff...

[Wolverine]

Originally posted by Frostbite
Ok whatever, forget it.

No, let's not! If tangible, physical evidence demonstrating the existence of an advanced extraterrestrial species or its interaction with humans is available anywhere, I'd love to see anything and everything pertaining to it. I mean that genuinely. The ramifications could indeed be staggering, not to mention being amongst (if not the) most important scientific discoveries in history.

With so many claims made in this area, if any of them are indeed genuine, tangible evidence shouldn't be difficult to produce.

(edited to add: perhaps provide would be a better term)

[Frostbite]

I know what you're saying. There hasn't been physical evidence about UFO's officially, and those that were found were ALL said to be forgeries (just do a google search for "alien artifacts" or something and I'm sure you'll come across a plethora of pictures Billy Bob took in his backyard of a piece of alien wreckage). Of course, we can't take these seriously, and it's understandable to be extremely cautious and skeptic especially the UFO craze of the 60's where everyone had been taken to Venus or something. Same thing with all that crap from Area 51. What's true, what's not? Who can say for sure?

UFO's like ghosts or sasquatch or Nessie or whatever, is just a way for the everage joe to have his name in the local newspaper or on tv, and I understand why we must be cautious. But I still think that, considering many people throughout the world, from different cultural and social backgrounds, from different times in history, have been reporting more or less the same things. Disks in the air moving at insane speeds, skinny aliens with giant black eyes, etc. They most probably originate from some guy who made up this cool story, but what if, WHAT IF, these things were actually about real aliens?

Imho, you're as much a fool if you completely dismiss everything as if you accept everything literally. Life isn't black or white.

[davefoc]

Frostbite,
Put me in the dismiss the whole thing camp.

A reasonable question to ask about things like this is to estimate what the evidence would be like if there was no phenomon other than the large capacity for self delusion and fraud by human beings.

In the case of extra teresstial abductions, the evidence presented is entirely consistent with the notion that humnanity's collection of self-deluders and hoaxers has adopted extra terrestial abductions as a commonly inspired fantasy.

What sets the evidence for extraterrestial interactions apart from evidence for ghosts, sasquatch, loch ness monster, fantasies about parental sexual abuse, ESP, crop circles, etc? Nothing.

There is not a shred of physical evidence, the people who are the believers have a propensity for believing other imaginary stuff, and there is a band of promoters with suspect motives making money off the myths.

On a somewhat different subject, I think it is very unlikely that we are going to detect evidence of any extraterrestial intelligence. The arguments for this are complicated and beyond my technical level but for me they are about this:
1. The massive distances involved.
2. The short time that the human population has existed with the capability to monitor or transmit data to nearby stars suggests to me that technological civilizations may be short lived. If technological civilizations are short lived they are very unlikely to exist at the same time.
3. The limited range of temperatures, pressures etc. that need to exist on a planet for technically capable life suggest to me that solar systems that can support life are rare.
4. Scientific American ran a story suggesting that the conditions for life are limited to a fairly narrow region of the galaxy where the concentrations of some of the heavier elements are high enough.
5. SETI (search for extraterrestial life) has been running long enough and thoroughly enough to suggest that life in nearby star systems is unlikely.

[Frostbite]

So... you're saying you know all UFO accounts ever recorded in history are hoaxes? That's quite an assumption.

[rwald]

Since we already know that 95% of all the UFO accounts ever recorded in history are hoaxes, assuming that the other 5% are, too, isn't that big an assumption.

Assuming that, despite the 95% being hoaxes, the 5% are real, would be a bigger assumption.

For the record, my opinion is that the universe is full of life, and that we'll never interact with any of it (save for on this planet). The distances are simply too great.

[davefoc]

frostbite,
Thanks for the response. I think rwald summed it up my thoughts pretty well.

If one were going to wait until one had evaluated every report on any subject until making a judgment on that subject, one would never be able to formulate an opinion about anything.

I think its fair to say that I know way less than the average haunted house expert about the various reports and data collected from "haunted" houses, yet I don't believe in ghosts. Similarly, I don't believe in bigfoot, the lochness monster and a vast array of other subjects where the "experts" know more than me.

The reason that I don't believe alien abductee stories is that there is no compelling evidence for them and the nature of the universe is such the stories are very unlikely to be true. I do know that humans have a great propensity for self-deception and hoaxing. Given that there are so many humans it is perfectly reasonable to expect that some of them will think they have been abducted by space aliens, expecially in a world full of science fiction literature and reports of others people being abducted.

[Frostbite]

Opinions, assumptions, theories, speculation... all meaningless really. I have the right for my opinions as much as you guys. Unless I have absolute proof that 100% of UFO accounts are hoaxes, I consider this an open case and I like the possibilities of technologically advanced alien visitors. I do not believe in aliens unless I've seen them with my own eyes, but I won't say they don't exist either.

[Keneke]

You have that right, Frostbite, but in the end I think it's a matter of what's important in our lives. Do UFOs have any impact to our culture? No more than any other pop culture phenomena. What IS important is the economy, war with Iraq, gas prices, ecology, and who is going to assassinate Bud Selig. In the end, trying to find UFOs consumes time and money. People have devoted their lives to it, as well as fortunes, and we are no closer to understanding.

What does this mean? This means that we need to get on with our lives, because the odds of corroborating proof is slim to none. We may wonder about UFOs for the whole of human existence, but it's perfectly safe to ignore such things because of the precedent. I'm perfectly happy not knowing things that I don't need to know.

[Frostbite]

That's exactly what I've been saying all along heh. I'm not trying to find UFO's, that would be pathetic. I'm just saying that, if one day I read a newspaper and they announce proof that UFO's exist, it won't shock me too much because I'm open to that possibility, and I'm actually looking forward to it.

[c0rbin]

I think Carl Sagan documents pretty well (and backs up with some medical statistical evidence) the similarities and mundane explanations behind UFO abductions in Demon-Haunted World.

[Keneke]

Originally posted by Frostbite
I'm open to that possibility, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Don't hold your breath. ;)

[Frostbite]

I liked Contact better. :-D

[Wolverine]

Does anyone know of any data presented by an objective source on the cumulative history of UFO accounts and how many events have specifically been hoaxed?

I would actually contend that the vast majority of UFO sightings are merely aircraft or rather ordinary events explicable by other means, and that a very small percentage of them are verifiably perpetrated hoaxes (e.g. Ed Walters, Travis Walton, etc).

[kittynh]

Philip Klass has the most readable interesting UFO books around. You can probably get them on Amazon, or Ebay. He takes many cases and shows what the problem with them are. His book "Alien Abductions" shows such compassion for those that believe they have suffered abductions, that you really see the reality of how these people have been changed by their perceived experiences. I highly reccomend his books, and they are not too heavy, indeed even a fun read.

[Wolverine]

Yep I like Klass quite a bit.

However, I was looking for data (preferably online) that just states "there have been X ufo reports over the last century and Y have been documented as false"... that sorta thing. :)

[rwald]

Frostbite, if you're going to wait for "100% absolute proof," you'll be waiting a long time. Why? In real science, there is no such thing as 100% absolute proof. Everything is just based on "what theory best fits the data." Given the data we have, the best theory about alien abductions is that they're all hoaxes or self-deception. Yes, it's possible that 1 out of a 100 is fake. It's also possible that I'm not actually a human posting comments to this board, but rather that I am a computer doing so. In both cases, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests one theory over the other. That's the best proof you're going to get.