They note the evolving contents of abduction claims and the apparent effect of culture on the details of the narratives as evidence that the phenomenon is a purely subjective experience.
Although different cases vary in detail (sometimes significantly), some UFO researchers, such as folklorist Thomas E. Bullard[1] argue that there is a broad, fairly consistent sequence and description of events which make up the typical "close encounter of the fourth kind" (a popular but unofficial designation building on J. Allen Hynek's classifying terminology).
Some researchers (especially Budd Hopkins and David M. Jacobs) have been accused of excluding, minimising or suppressing testimony or data which do not fit a certain paradigm for the phenomenon.
[2] As the alleged abduction proceeds, claimants say they will walk or be levitated into an alien craft, often through solid objects like walls or a window.
[citation needed] Typically, at the onset of the abduction experience, the abductee will report paralysis, sighting a bright light, and the appearance of humanoid figures.
In many abduction reports, the individual(s) concerned are traveling by automobile at the time of the incident, usually at night or in the early morning hours, and usually in a rural or sparsely populated area.
Some reports indicate the alleged aliens, often the Greys, using a pencil-sized, black device with a light on the end of it to make the abductee compliant.
[4][page needed] Upon getting out of the vehicle, the driver and passenger(s) often will experience a blank period and amnesia (see Missing Time), after which they will find themselves again standing in front of, or driving their car.
While they frequently will not consciously remember the experience, either subsequent nightmares or hypnosis will reveal events interpreted as having occurred during the period lacking explicit memory.
[5] Miller believes these differences add credibility to claims of alien abductions, because if they were hoaxes or confabulations, the reports should more closely resemble the human medicine familiar to the claimants.
[5] One of Smith's clients reported the removal of his skull cap and some sort of procedure being performed to his exposed brain with a needle-like instrument.
[4] One procedure reported occurring during the alleged exam phase of the experience is the insertion of a long needle-like contraption into a woman's navel.
[9] Physician and abduction researcher John Altshuler notes that the main reasons a human doctor would collect skin scrapings would be to check for bacterial or fungal infections.
[5] When the abductors appear to use devices analogous to those used in human medicine, they are often quite different; for example, alleged alien syringes are often reported as being "three-pronged".
[3] Folklorist Thomas E. Bullard conducted a study of 300 reports of alien abduction in an attempt to observe the less prominent aspects of the claims.
[11] These four types of events are:[11] Chronologically within abduction reports, these rarer episodes tend to happen in the order listed, between the medical examination and the return.
[11] After allegedly displaying cold callous disregard towards the abduction experiencers, sometimes the entities will change drastically in behavior once the initial medical exam is completed.
[citation needed] The explanatory segment is a phase where the abductors will explain their motives to their captive, why the abductee was chosen as opposed to another human, or other things relating to the abduction phenomenon.
[11] Warnings are sometimes given by the entities about the possibilities of future calamity resulting from current trends in human society such as warfare and the development of weapons of mass destruction or pollution and environmental concerns.
[11] When an otherworldly journey starts in these reports, the abductors often put the abductee in some sort of protective environment, usually described as a chamber filled with liquid.
[11] Once in motion, the vessel (often described as a UFO) will enter a "mother ship" or end up traveling underwater or underground to a strange, otherworldly location.
[11] Other researchers suggest that investigators have overlooked this feature; psychologist Susan A. Clancy, a skeptic at Harvard Medical School who studied abductees' psychology, noted that "all of the subjects, without exception, said they felt 'changed' because of their experiences.
[15] Reports have been made of people awakening to find that their clothes are being worn improperly in bizarre ways (e.g. a long-sleeve shirt apparently forced up over the legs like a pair of pants).
[15] Don C. Donderi writes: "In many of these abduction accounts, there is independent confirmation of missing time – emotionally stable people arriving hours late after long or short automobile journeys.
[16] Skeptics Robert Sheaffer and Phillip J. Klass agree that individual abduction researchers appear to exert influence on the characteristics of narratives retrieved during hypnotic recall.
[17] Although proponents have argued that there is a core narrative consistent across abduction claims, there is little doubt that variation occurs in the details of reports across cultures and geographic boundaries.
[17] Furthermore, the contents and structure of the "abduction narrative" as outlined by researchers like Nyman and Bullard were already established in fictional form by 1930 in a Buck Rogers strip.
[17] The strip depicts an alien craft piloted by Martian "Tiger Men", who capture a female character and subject her to similar treatment as those in real-world abduction claims.
[6] In an essay, Bullard writes that "The small showing for monstrous types and the fact that they concentrate in less reliable cases should disappoint skeptics who look for the origin of abductions in the influence of Hollywood.
The frightening "terror abduction" experience is reported mainly in the USA, while in the rest of the world, the ET encounters are said to be largely benevolent – this apparent incongruity perhaps raising a question as to the phenomenon's origins.