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throughout abductees’ lifetimes. Some bore
scars, the causes of which were mysterious
until hypnosis revealed them to have been the
result of alien medical procedures. A number
claimed that their abductors had placed implants,
usually through the nose or ear, inside
their bodies. Hopkins and his colleagues took
their cases to mental health professionals,
whose tests of abductees suggested that they
were psychologically normal.
In his much-read book Missing Time
(1981) Hopkins argued for a literal interpreta-
Abductions by UFOs 3
Betty and Barney Hill, who believed they were abducted and taken aboard a UFO, New Hampshire, September 1961
(Fortean Picture Library)
tion of abduction stories. In other words, he
held that extraterrestrials were literally taking
human beings and doing things to them without
their consent. Other ufologists disagreed.
Ufologist Alvin H. Lawson, who had overseen
the earlier “imaginary-abduction” experiment,
offered his own exotic hypothesis that abductees
were suffering imaginary experiences
in which they relived the “trauma” associated
with their births. More modestly, others proposed
more conventional psychological explanations,
such as hallucinations and confabula-