Alien Lore No. 42::::A Scholarly Book On Abductions

Since I just wrote about this the other day (well, maybe a couple of other times too), I thought I'd mention a new book. . .

ABDUCTED: HOW PEOPLE COME TO BELIEVE THEY WERE KIDNAPPED BY ALIENS By Susan A. Clancy (Harvard University Press). The book opens with: "Will Andrews is an articulate, handsome, forty-two-year-old. He's a successful chiropractor, lives in a wealthy American suburb, and has a strikingly attractive wife and twin boys, age eight. The only glitch in this picture of domestic bliss is that his children are not his wife's -- they are the product of an earlier infidelity. To complicate matters further, the biological mother is an extraterrestrial."

This hilarious opener segues into a scholarly and seemingly sincerely sympathetic study [a five place alliteration!] of people who believe they have been abducted by aliens. Clancy writes that the proper scientific response is not, "Why investigate abduction since it is not really happening?" but rather "What sort of people are reporting being abducted, and why?"

Dr. Clancy makes the salient point that there are no popular (in fact there are none period) accounts of abduction accounts before 1962. None. Roswell, and other incidents had certainly occurred, but the great watershed of abductions comes after this. 1962, if you have been following this alien lore thread, was shortly after the reported abduction of Betty and Barney Hill became news.

"As far as science knows, nobody is being abducted by aliens," Clancy stressed. One caveat on this book: Dr. Clancy is of the controversial repressed/recovered memory school of psychology. If you find that theory hokum, then this book may not be for you...
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