Kidnapped By UFOs?

NOVA News Minutes
Alien Abductee Stress
 (running time 01:47)

 Transcript
December 5, 2003

NARRATOR: Have you seen this guy? Thousands of people say they have. As shown on PBS's NOVA, reports of alien abductions have become commonplace.

PETER (Has memories of an abduction): I'd be floated outside, and then, in a beam of light, lifted up into a ship. And the most striking thing, or the things I remember the most, what I'd consider the examination room, where the floor was like a jet black, like an obsidian black....

NARRATOR: You might have trouble believing Peter, but research in the journal Psychological Science suggests he's sincere in his beliefs. That's because he shares traits with war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Veterans with PTSD had strong physical reactions when audio recreations of their experiences were played in the lab.

RICHARD MCNALLY (Harvard University): So, for example, their heart rate will go up, their skin conductance activity, the sweating on the palm of the hand, will increase. Individuals who do not have PTSD but who have experienced traumatic events typically will not show that reactivity.

NARRATOR: When McNally gave the test to people with memories of alien abductions, their reactions were the same. Budd Hopkins runs a foundation for people who believe they've been abducted by aliens. He thinks this validates their stories.

BUDD HOPKINS (Executive Director, Intruders Foundation): I thought this was a quite a wonderful thing. Because it's exactly the results we thought the scientific community would present if they actually looked into the cases.

NARRATOR: But McNally believes these are false memories formed during "sleep paralysis"—a common condition where someone is half awake but can't move—which can be accompanied by dream-like hallucinations.

RICHARD MCNALLY (Harvard University): Merely because someone experiences intense emotions surrounding a particular memory does not itself confirm that the memory actually indicates something happened.

NARRATOR: But he says it does show just how powerful a false memory can be. I'm Brad Kloza.

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