The term "abduction phenomenon" describes claims that non-human creatures kidnapped individuals and temporarily removed them from familiar terrestrial surroundings.
[3] Since that time, the credibility and mental health of alleged experiencers has taken on great importance to those seeking to determine the veracity of the abduction claims.
Mainstream academics and members of the skeptics movement generally doubt that the phenomenon occurs literally as reported, and have proposed a variety of alternative explanations.
Such skeptics often argue that the phenomenon might be a modern-day folk myth or vivid dreams occurring in a state of sleep paralysis.
[4] Dr. Elizabeth Slater conducted a blind study of nine abduction claimants and found them to be prone to "mildly paranoid thinking", nightmares and having a weak sexual identity.
[6] Sometimes abductees experience the sensation of being both human and alien at the same time, a phenomenon Joe Nyman calls "dual reference".
[10] These child-reports often feature very specific details in common with reports of abduction made by adults, including the circumstances, narrative, entities and aftermaths of the alleged occurrences.
[10] She notes several characteristic behaviors of children fictionalizing stories, such as pausing to think, attempting to anticipate the reaction of the listener, or trying to fake convincing eye contact.
Although these phantasms are alleged to have appeared regularly, no corroborating sightings from members of the abductees' families or others that may have been expected to see them have been reported.
[5] There are ten different illustrated flash cards in the HIRT, nine of which depict "images from myth, from the real world, and from popular culture".
[5] The first portion of the test is treated as a flash-card type children's game where the administrator asks the child to identify the figure depicted on the card presented to them.
[5] By contrast, control group children often file the alien head under the "like" category, because "they had no reason to dislike something they didn't recognize".
[5] Boylan also voiced criticism of the test itself, noting that the grey face was "the only anomalous figure in the set", and that a "spooky narrative" in response to the image was to be expected.
[4] In 1991, Hopkins, Jacobs and sociologist Dr. Ron Westrum commissioned a Roper Poll in order to determine how many Americans might have experienced the abduction phenomenon.