Last Updated: December 10, 2008 0:19

The following article was published by “InChelsea.com”, January 2nd, 2006           

Are You An Alien Abductee?

58 Common Indicators Of UFO Encounters Or Abductions By Alien Beings

Compiled by Melinda Leslie
Edited by Mark Williams

Many millions of people, it seems, have had encounters with alien beings. Many of those people do not realise that they are having these experiences because of suppressed memories. Their awareness is limited to an occasional paranormal incident that seems to confuse them more than anything else. Some people are not ready to know for sure, others feel a deep need to know if they are involved with the beings. If you are in the later group, read on.
This is a list of 58 common indicators shared by most UFO abductees. It is based on known research on the subject and on personal findings. It has been compiled to help you determine if you are an abductee. Of course there may be other explanations for these occurrences and this is in no way an absolute means of knowing if you are an abductee. If you or someone you know does fit many of these traits listed here, please seek the help of a qualified researcher of therapist. This list is not in any particular order.

Ask yourself if you...

1. Have had unexplainable missing or lost time of one hour or    more.

2. Have been paralyzed in bed with a being in your room.

3. Have unusual scars or marks with no possible explanation on how you received them (small scoop indentation, straight line scar, triangular marks, scars in roof of mouth, in nose, behind or in ears, etc.)

4. Have seen balls of light or flashes of light in your home or other locations

5. Have a memory of flying through the air which could not be a dream, or many dreams involving flying.

6. Have a strong "marker memory" that will not go away (i.e.: an alien face, an examination, a needle, a table, a strange    skinny baby, etc.)

7. Have seen beams of light outside your home, or come into your room through a window.

8. Have had many dreams of UFOs, beams of light, or alien beings.

9. Have had a shocking UFO sighting or multiple sightings in your life.

10. Have a cosmic awareness, an interest in ecology, environment, vegetarianism, or are very socially conscious.

11. Have a strong sense of having a mission or important task to perform, sometime, without knowing where this compulsion is coming from.

12. Have a secret feeling that you are "special" or "chosen," somehow.

13. Have had unexplainable events occur in your life, and felt strangely anxious afterwards.

14. Have had several strange psychic experiences - such as knowing that something is going to happen before it happens.

15. For women only: Have had false pregnancy or missing fetus. (pregnant, and then not)

16. Have awoken in another place than where you went to sleep, or don't remember ever going to sleep. (i.e. waking up with your head at the foot of your bed, or in your car)

17. Have had a dream of eyes such as animal eyes (like an owl or deer), or remember seeing an animal looking in at you. Also if you have a fear of eyes.

18. Have awoken in the middle of the night startled.

19. Have strong reaction to cover of Communion or pictures of aliens. Either an aversion to or being drawn to.

20. Have inexplicably strong fears or phobias. (i.e. heights, snakes, spiders, large insects, certain sounds, bright lights, your personal security or being alone).

21. Have experienced self-esteem problem much of your life.

22. Have seen someone with you become paralyzed, motionless, or frozen in time, especially someone you sleep with.

23. Have a memory of having a special place with spiritual significance, when you were a youngster.

24. Have had someone in your life who claims to have witnessed a ship or alien near you or has witnessed you having been missing.

25. Have had, at any time, blood or strangel stain on sheet or pillow, with no explanation of how it got there.

26. Have an interest in the subject of UFO sightings or aliens, perhaps compelled to read about it a lot.

27. Have an extreme aversion towards the subject of UFO's or aliens - don't want to talk about it.

28. Have been suddenly compelled to drive or walk to an out of the way or unknown area.

29. Have the feeling of being watched much of the time, especially at night.

30. Have had dreams of passing through a closed window or solid wall.

31. Have seen a strange fog or haze that should not be there.

32. Have heard strange humming or pulsing sounds, and you could not identify the source.

33. Have had unusual nose bleeds at any time in your life. Or have awoken with a nose bleed.

34. Have awoken with soreness in your genitals which can not be explained.

35. Have had back or neck problems, T-3 vertebrae out often, or awoken with an unusual stiffness in any part of the body.

36. Have had chronic sinusitis or nasal problems.

37. Have had electronics around you go haywire or oddly malfunction with no explanation (such as street lights going out as you walk under them, TV's and radios affected as you move close, etc.).

38. Have seen a hooded figure in or near your home, especially next to your bed.

39. Have had frequent or sporadic ringing in your ears, especially in one ear.

40. Have an unusual fear of doctors or tend to avoid medical treatment.

41. Have insomnia or sleep disorders which are puzzling to you.

42. Have had dreams of doctors or medical procedures.

43. Have frequent or sporadic headaches, especially in the sinus, behind one eye, or in one ear.

44. Have the feeling that you are going crazy for even thinking about these sorts of things.

45. Have had paranormal or psychic experiences, including intuition.

46. Have been prone to compulsive or addictive behavior.

47. Have channeled telepathic messages from extraterrestrials.

48. Have simply heard an external voice in your head, speaking to you, perhaps instructing or guiding you.

49. Have been afraid of your closet, now or as a child.

50. Have had sexual or relationship problems (such as an odd "feeling" that you must not become involved in a relationship because it would interfere with "something.")

51. Have to sleep against the wall or must sleep with your bed against a wall.

52. Have a fear that you must be very vigilant or you will be taken away by "someone."

53. Have a difficult time trusting other people, especially authority figures.

54. Have had dreams of destruction or catastrophe.

55. Have the feeling that you are not supposed to talk about these things, or that you should not talk about them.

56. Have experienced many things in this list, and recall your children or parents speaking of similar experiences on occasion.

57. Have tried to resolve these types of problems with little or no success.

58. Have many of these traits but can't remember anything about an abduction or alien encounter.

The following article was published in  The Guardian Tuesday October 14 2008

Weird... Or What?

Why do people have paranormal experiences?

A team of researchers has been trying to find out

by Rosie Waterhouse

Why do people believe they have been abducted by aliens?

That is the question arch sceptic and professor of psychology Chris French set out to answer in a research project that began five years ago.

Now, in a unique UK-based study to be published this month, French has come up with an intriguing explanation. Alien abductees, or "experiencers" as he describes them, have a different psychological profile to people who do not claim to have had these experiences, the research shows.

Experiencers have higher levels of paranormal belief, paranormal experience, self-reported psychic ability and fantasy proneness, more vivid imaginations, a greater tendency to hallucinate and more self-reported incidences of sleep paralysis.

Search for explanations

Sleep paralysis is a scientifically accepted condition. It usually happens between sleeping and waking, when the sufferer experiences a terrifying feeling of being paralysed, unable to move or speak, while an unidentifiable horror lurks in the dark.

Several of the experiencers in the study had suffered sleep paralysis and in searching for an explanation concluded they had had a close encounter, French says. "If you have had a really vivid experience like that and you can't make any sense of it, and you come across an article or a book or a documentary that says you may well have been abducted by aliens, it gives you an explanation, and it also means you're not crazy.

"So we can see why some people may go for that and may then, as a consequence, end up going for hypnotic regression, already with the idea in their head that they have been abducted by aliens - and, surprise, surprise, what kind of memory then appears to surface? It's being taken on board a spaceship."

Six of the experiencers had undergone hypnotic regression, which French believes can implant false memories. The research also found the abductees showed higher levels of dissociativity (a tendency to switch off or have altered states of consciousness, such as out of body experiences and missing time episodes) and absorption (an ability to lose themselves in some activity such as watching a movie or reading a novel).

French, who is head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at Goldsmiths College, University of London, led a team of researchers who studied 19 experiencers and a control group, matched for gender and age. In each group, there were eight men and 11 women, aged between their early 20s and early 70s.

The experiencer category included anyone who claimed to have had extraterrestrial contact. These included UFO sightings; direct contact with a variety of alien life forms as well as telepathic communication with aliens; six reported believing that the aliens had implanted some device in their bodies; one believed that his terrestrial parents were not his real parents (his real parents being extraterrestrials); two reported finding marks on their bodies caused by the aliens; and three reported that aliens had removed foetuses from them or caused them to have miscarriages.

The participants completed seven questionnaires and were interviewed by researchers. The article, called Psychological Aspects of the Alien Abduction Experience, is published in the neuroscience journal Cortex. Its

publication is a vindication of French's field of research, anomalistic psychology, which he defines as "the psychology of weird experiences that people have and the beliefs that are associated with them", and which he has pursued for more than 20 years. He also edits a semi-satirical publication, the Skeptic Magazine.

"I'm very used to defending my interest in this because, even now, I get the impression from certain colleagues that it's not quite a respectable thing to be interested in, even though you may have the word sceptic tattooed across your forehead.

"The truth is, looking at the opinion polls [see below], most people do believe in the paranormal and a sizeable minority claim to have direct personal experience. This can mean one of two things, either that paranormal forces really exist, and if that is the case, scientists should accept that and get on and study it in the same way we study and try to understand anything else. Or it's telling us something really interesting about human psychology. Either way, I think it's worth taking these kinds of beliefs seriously.

"One possibility is that people really are being abducted by aliens and taken on board space ships and being probed in interesting ways. I'm not convinced that the ET [extraterrestrial] hypothesis is true. So the challenge for the psychologist is to try to explain what is going on. I think the most plausible explanation is these are false memories."

A-level option

The profile of French's field of research is about to be raised still further following a decision by one of the biggest examination boards in the UK, the AQA, to introduce the study of anomalistic psychology as an option in the curriculum for its psychology A-level from September next year.

French, who is writing a chapter on the subject for one of the board's psychology textbooks, is delighted his rather niche specialism will reach a wider audience in schools. "I'm very excited about it," he says. "The reason I like teaching this topic is the material is a great hook to get people interested.

"Whether they are believers or sceptics, most people find these claims of aliens and ghosts and strange powers interesting. Once you've got the interest, it raises all kinds of issues about the nature of evidence and what should we accept as convincing evidence, and about using it as a tool for critical thinking more generally".

Is French going to be turning out a generation of disbelieving sceptics? "To be properly sceptical you have to be open to the possibility you might be wrong, and willing to be persuaded by evidence. Scepticism is not about dismissing claims before you look at the evidence. It's about saying, show me the evidence."

Close encounters

In a recent lecture, French cited figures from an opinion poll of a representative sample of 1,000 British adults. The figures in square brackets indicate those reporting direct personal

experience of the phenomenon in question:

 - 64% believe that some people have powers that cannot be

   explained by science [16%]

 - 63% believe in God [14%]

 - 52% believe in life after death [11%]

 - 49% believe in ghosts [13%]

 - 49% believe in precognitive dreams [19%]

 - 49% believe in heaven (only 28% believe in hell) [2%, 2%]

 - 47% believe in thought reading [14%]

 - 41% believe in communication with the dead [9%]

 - 34% believe in psychokinesis [4%]

 - 26% believe in angels [ 3%]

 - 25% believe in reincarnation [-]