Abducted – How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens

By Stefan Isaksson

Abducted – How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens
Susan A. Clancy
Harvard University Press
179 pages
ISBN: 0674018796

No matter where you look, you’ll still be unable to find any evidence (unless you choose to believe in paranoid conspiracy-theorists or New Age adherents) that Earth is being visited from time to time by extraterrestrial beings, and there’s furthermore no evidence whatsoever for the stories about alien abduction being hard facts. But despite all this, people all over the world of all ages and all cultures still believe that the spaceships are here and that anyone at anytime can be kidnapped by them and forced to undergo the most horrible medical experiments imaginable.

And why is that? Why do people believe they’ve been abducted, and most importantly, why CHOOSE to believe something like that? Because, after all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but no, the belief in extraterrestrials continue to spread, more and more people accept it as hard fact, while the scientific community continues to deny the whole thing.

But not all scientists choose to ignore it. Susan Clancy, a psychologist from Harvard University, has chosen to take a closer look at the people being the phenomenon, and the end result is one of the most well-written books about abductions that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

Clancy doesn’t believe in extraterrestrials visiting Earth or abductions taking place, but she doesn’t doubt that the people reporting it are sincere, and she’s very keen to point out that the great majority of them are completely normal people who unwillingly have created false memories. These memories are the result of nightmares, sleep paralysis, contemporary cultural ideas, and a strong desire to find a meaning in life that the stale scientific worldview is unable to provide. And it’s not the abductees’ “fault” that they believe what they believe, instead it something that relates to modern man’s incapability to find understanding and purpose in life. Clancy treats her subjects with the utmost respect; she continually follows the laws and methods of science, while never forgetting that there are real people behind the bizarre claims.

This mix of scientific inquiry and respect for her fellow man is a pleasure to take part of, and she even manages to squeeze in a little humour here and there. It’s a very long book, but Clancy gets a lot of interesting points made, and one can only hope that she will continue her studies. The UFO phenomenon and the books dealing with it often is ruled by pseudo-science and a desire to make a quick buck, and Susan Clancy is therefore a rising star that should be welcomed with open arms by everyone with a serious interest in this great modern enigma.

Abducted is a definite must, and anyone who choose not to buy it will probably regret it forever.