The Psychology of Alien Contact and Abduction - Tuesday, November 17 at 7:30PM

The Psychology of Alien Contact and Abduction

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Thousands of people around the world claim to have directly experienced contact with extraterrestrials and in many cases to have been abducted by aliens and taken on board spaceships and subjected to medical examination. How are we to explain such claims? With a few notable exceptions, those making such claims do not appear to be deliberately lying. Neither do they appear to be suffering from serious psychopathology. However, there are good reasons for doubting that such accounts are accurate reflections of events taking place in objective reality. A number of psychological factors have been implicated in attempts to explain such claims including sleep paralysis, personality factors such as fantasy proneness and possibly unusual activity in the temporal lobes of the brain. It seems likely that alien contact and abduction claims are examples of false memories.

Chris French is a Professor of Psychology and Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths College, University of London (www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/apru). Anomalistic psychology may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, including (but not restricted to) those which are often labelled “paranormal”. It is directed towards understanding bizarre experiences that many people have without assuming a priori that there is anything paranormal involved. He has edited the (UK) Skeptic magazine since 2001. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the British False Memory Society and the Advisory Board of the Center for Inquiry, London. He has published over 100 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics within psychology. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. In addition to academic activities, such as conference presentations and invited talks, he frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims.