False Memories and False Memory Syndrome: An Explanation for Alien Abduction Stories

Abstract

In the past decade and a half, more and more people are coming out in the open and sharing their traumatic experiences of being abducted by aliens. Skeptics have compared such narrations to a large number of child-sexual abuse cases that have no forensic evidence and were later termed as resulting from false memories caused due to hypnotherapy. A false memory is a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event that did not actually happen. False memories can be extended to such an extent within an individual that it may become a syndrome. This syndrome, known as the false memory syndrome, is the belief that one remembers events, especially traumatic and remote in time, which has not actually occurred. Apart from hypnosis there are number of causes of false memories leading to false memory syndrome.