Alien abductions as a medical hypothesis

I found this good paper online: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

PDF File included in the link above

Abstract

In response to a new psychological study of persons who believe they have been abducted by space aliens that found that sleep paralysis, a history of being hypnotized, and preoccupation with the paranormal and extraterrestrial were predisposing experiences, I noted that many of the frequently reported particulars of the abduction experience bear more than a passing resemblance to medical-surgical procedures and propose that experience with these may also be contributory. There is the altered state of consciousness, uniformly colored figures with prominent eyes, in a high-tech room under a round bright saucerlike object; there is nakedness, pain and a loss of control while the body's boundaries are being probed; and yet the figures are thought benevolent. No medical-surgical history was apparently taken in the above mentioned study, but psychological laboratory work evaluated false memory formation. I discuss problems in assessing intraoperative awareness and ways in which the medical hypothesis could be elaborated and tested. If physicians are causing this syndrome in a percentage of patients, we should know about it; and persons who feel they have been abducted should be encouraged to inform their surgeons and anesthesiologists without challenging their beliefs.

Any thoughts? Are these experiences real or some form of psychosis or maybe a result of some medical conditions?

Can some of these cases be real and some other cases products of psychosis and even hoaxes and fabrications?

Difficult to answer and seems a complicated issue. The strong hypothesis as stated by the author is that abductees are recovering memories from actual surgery. But surgery by whom? Aliens? Humans? Something tells me that humans could be involved too in these procedures if some of the cases are true. The weak hypothesis states that abductees are conflating media concepts of aliens with images of medical and surgical procedures. The experiences they think they have may not be true after all. But how can someone test if these experiences are true?

a reply to: linda72
I can understand your position in wanting to get somewhat deeply into a dilemma and phenomena that dismays and scares the normal human almost to death. And eventually, mass deaths, may come to that extreme as the resistance to the truth of ETs being here and now is fully confronted and resisted by common earthlings for that reality is far beyond the limit of the typical person.

I don't blame you for wanting a seemingly common answer to the UFO/ET phenomena, most people do or did, but the reality of our existence in the cosmos tells us that we are just another pea in the pod. And the evidence that we are being visited, abducted and changed as a species of life is over-overwhelmingly evident every day that a mysterious object is seen or imaged floating around our skies.

There is no place to hide. Reason and logic connect the hard evidence sightings to the stories of us abductees that have been reported time and time again. The simple fact is that superior powers are in our midst and changing our governments as we fret about "what it all means!"

I have a daughter that is a counselor that was schooled to believe that the human brain is the best thing in the universe, that every oddity that may seem to appear within our world is explainable by some misconception of the mind. That nothing is out there that can influence us without our willingness to accept it. So witches, ghosts, saucers from Mars and abduction experiences are nothing but figments of human imagination, unworthy of serious discussion. We assume that we are the masters of the universe. How dare some of us tell tales that differ than what convention (in its several forms) wants us to believe.

In the grand scheme that is playing out, science and government are in on the program and hard at work trying to come to acceptable terms with what the ETs want for us to attain. While the public, from Day One, is left in the dark trying to come to terms with the unthinkable. So in the end, the chaos will reign. The public will revolt in a multitude of directions as it cannot and will not accept an obvious reality that superior minds and ideals are already having an effect upon humanity.

As I've said before, simply look around with a knowing eye at the changes being wrought upon us.

a reply to: linda72

No medical-surgical history was apparently taken in the above mentioned study, but psychological laboratory work evaluated false memory formation.

(Gotta say, I've got a personal thing about this subject. REEE.)
I question their instruction manual like my computer model shows that pigs fly. Catapults or cartoons, it's airborne bacon. Trust the data, right?

It's quite a precise thing, these reports. Over millennia, worldwide. It's either earthlings or other creatures doing the abduction and pseudo-medical torture, which is traumatizing, hence the "detectable" mental health factors of the affected human subjects.

Pop-culture mocks actuality. Apathy has no place here. Too many victims of habitually unaccepted phenomena.
Science is the art of the question. Emphasis on quest.
How much evidence equals proof?

a reply to: Observer19

I have a daughter that is a counselor that was schooled to believe that the human brain is the best thing in the universe, that every oddity that may seem to appear within our world is explainable by some misconception of the mind.

Express cutting one of her arms off, will she still fell the same? There are physical realities that have life long implications. This world is an amazing place, the deeper we look, the deeper it gets. As for finding any boundary to this place, the speed of light gets close. As for what all that means?

Maybe we are just getting farmed by some greater species. I know sin, screwed up a few time. As for the misconceptions, the media is big on that gas light these days.

My daughter had a medical procedure done when she was 18 months that was pretty awful. She had a UTI, and they wanted to take an x-ray while voiding so that they could visualize her kidneys and bladder for reflux under pressure. So she had to be awake. The gave her benydril, but she was fighting the whole time. I was with her during the procedure, an xray room, with medical people masked, which makes the nose and mouth disappear and the eyes larger, particularly wearing eye shields or magnifiers. Scary machines, weird lighting, laying on a table, and a catheter. I remember thinking, I wonder how this is effecting her subconscious, I even thought of how much from her perspective, it looked exactly like an alien abduction!? And the procedure did involve her private parts. In short, it was a terrible day and would be traumatic, but too young to remember?

When I was 2 and a half, I had to spend a few days in hospital in an oxygen tent with pneumonia. I have some weird memories. Things looking distorted, feeling trapped, moist, hot. Like being in one of those holding cocoons the aliens store species in.

I would want to know what types of procedures abductees had as very young children, or even older, adults that may have woken up during surgery. It happens more often than we think or remember. But the subconscious knows.

a reply to: linda72

I always thought "Alien" Abductions were Sleep paralysis.

originally posted by: NoQuarter
a reply to: linda72

I always thought "Alien" Abductions were Sleep paralysis.

I suspect most are.
There may be some exceptions, like the Travis Walton failing his professional lie detector test miserably to the point the examiner was sure Walton was deceptive, so that case has all the hallmarks of a hoax.

Susan Clancy from Harvard researched this subject and she says the only chance "abductees" might want to know what really happened to them is right after their experience when they are still questioning what happened to them, and they are in a receptive state because of being a little confused.

But, she says, once they decide they were abducted, it becomes a part of their core belief system and they no longer want to know the truth of what really happened. It's an interesting video:

How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens


But other than sleep paralysis and Travis Walton's hoax, Betty and Barney hill's case is more complicated and doesn't fall neatly in either category. A likely explanation is for that is given here:

threedollarkit.weebly.com...

Second to last, while this image is fake news, who is to say there's not some person or persons wearing suits and actually accounting for some experiences?


Lastly, actual alien abduction is not considered to be a scientific claim until we have a lot more reliable evidence than evidence based on well-known flaws in human perception and memory. That doesn't necessarily mean alien abduction never happened, but it does mean that the evidence for it is so far totally unconvincing from a scientific perspective.

a reply to: linda72

I have never been abducted

I have had sleep paralysis since age 7. Thousands of visits by the evil 7' faceless, handless hooded entity. When I was interviewed by Dr. Sheila Pryce Brooks of York University, London UK by zoom call, she said that that entity is "The Guardian of The Threshold". It last visited me in Christmas week 2018. I stopped it by praying my arse off to God. Since that time to date 23May2023 only 6 SP episode's. The last was January 30, 2022. It was a nude 30 something human woman with Shania Twain type of hair. She was fluffing my wife's pillow and freaked me out. In my mind I asked "Jesus please help me" as I perceived her as evil. The SP stopped that second. Everything I have seen in SP scared the sheep out of me. I don't know who she was. Prior to that two other human women and a young boy all after the hoodie stopped the visitations

Sleep Paralysis [YES] see above. I never knew what it was until 2019. I credit ATS member Sled 735. RIP!
A history of being hypnotized [NO] never in my life
Preoccupation with the paranormal [NO]
Preoccupation with extraterrestrial [NO] Saw my 1st UFO on May 4, 2018. Post 05May2018 I have now been preoccupied with UFO but only a total of six [6] Sleep Paralysis episodes.


FYI

a reply to: Waterglass

The simple solutions offered by several of the above, including the thread topic's explanation is that the whole of the phenomena includes other parameters. In my own case, I was driving when the abduction happened during a very short trip to my home and by an analysis later of the circumstances I had lost over two hours. I do not recall any details of the main body of the event however, only the before and after. I'll mention that there were also significant life changes for me that started and have continued after that event.

Time after time, abductions have occurred when people are sleeping, in moving autos and in small groups.

All I can say is that the urge, imperative, actually, to dismiss associative data to many alien abductions has more to do with not admitting to the monsters that hides under our beds than factual data and reasoning. Certainly, that is a safe position one can continue believing, ...nothing out there could possibly be a threat as our trusting governments head into 80 years of denying and investigating what the phenomena is all about. Rest assured, they will not be telling you that the ETs have psychic powers that are beyond comprehension.

--Any true abduction can tell you that is an absolute fact, but it will remain hidden for as long as possible as the most damning factor for destroying our independence as a species. Eventually, the ETs may pledge to not manipulate us further in that regard because of our "social norms" finds those attributes offense. But we can only surmise and wait and see. The changes they seek seem to have been forced in many regards, so our delicate psyches may be viewed as theirs to manipulate. (Perhaps they have a history with us that suggests that is the case.)

a reply to: Observer19

You say there is evidence we have been visited.

No hard evidence yet. But I don't reject the proposition as many people have had experiences in the past nobody could explain. Yet far from evidence of visitation or abductions by the visitors.

a reply to: Waterglass

How does it feel to have sleep paralysis? Are you awake? Do you know what is going on around you?

a reply to: linda72

The experience is terrifying to this day. I dream in vivid color. My Sleep Paralysis is always in back and white. Sort of a snowy tv that is dark grey but you can see things such as your surroundings. Many times I am in my own bed. I see the door and furniture along with the "Hoodie" who has visited me over 1000 of times throughout my life. Dr. Brooks in 2022 told me that he's "The Keeper of the Threshold". He last visited me during the week before Christmas 2018. He hasn't been back since.

Most of what I went through was documented on a thread by Sled735. My 1st public entry with her was on January 1, 2019 on page 378. My last entry was some time before her passing. RIP Sled735! In 2018 I was PM her several times before I went public.

Has Anyone Had More Than One Type of Paranormal Experience

a reply to: Observer19

nothing out there could possibly be a threat as our trusting governments head into 80 years of denying and investigating what the phenomena is all about. Rest assured, they will not be telling you that the ETs have psychic powers that are beyond comprehension

Here's a link to a Podcast by UFO researcher George Knapp. I have been in contact with him by email.

UFO & Paranormal Connections The AAWSAP Legacy - Guest : Dr. Colm Kelleher

I know how our government works for several decades. We are all expendable. I believe you and they will do whatever to keep the lid on ET. They keep publishing more "science" on Sleep Paralysis which is absolute bullsheep IMO. I stopped mine in 2018-2019. Only 6 episodes since and were in 2023.

I simply prayed to God. It stopped.

I am sorry for what you have gone through as its terrifying. Especially if they try to come back again.

Interesting to read the parallels between medical surgery and the alien abduction.

Personally, only once have I been anesthesed, and I have also experienced the "abduction".

That said, it was at the age of five years I met the greys, and at the age of eight years the first known aesthetic to put me under.

The first thought that comes to my mind is the effects of anaesthesia.

The reports of conscious out of body experiences while under anaesthesia are not all that rare. Some accounts are of people telling nurses and surgeons what they talked about while performing surgery. Apparently some medical folks can be very rude.

So we may safely say the consciousness is being forced out of the physical body during surgery.

This suggests to me there is something similar happening in the abduction senario. An element of out of body experience.