Dieguez claims (without giving evidence) that the targets are not kept blind or randomized properly. If he’s right the experiments are worthless, but let us suppose they are done properly. Anecdotal reports of veridical NDEs may be “unconvincing” to Dieguez, but they convince many people. So if experiments can show that paranormal claims are unverifiable (which I expect they will) and can also explain why people have these experiences even if nothing leaves the body, then this would greatly improve people’s understanding of death and dying. Alternatively, if experiments show that people really do see hidden targets (which I do not expect but could conceivably happen), then this would be a dramatic challenge to most of science. The comparison with the intelligent design debate is false. ID proponents do not propose viable experiments that could potentially provide such a challenge.

As for ethics—yes, Dieguez is “overreacting a little bit.” The targets cannot harm patients (unless you believe in the paranormal). The critical point is when the doctor asks whether the patients would like to talk about their experiences. As long as they are given the chance to talk (as many like to do) or to decline to say anything at all then I see no serious ethical problem.

I want these experiments to be done. All those millions of people out there who proclaim they “know” they have a spirit that will survive death and “know” that consciousness has powers beyond the body deserve to have their claims tested.

Consciousness is a hot topic. Relegated to the fringes of science for most of the twentieth century, the question of consciousness crept back to legitimacy only with the collapse of behaviorism in the 1960s and 1970s, and only recently became an acceptable term for psychologists to use. Now many neuroscientists talk enthusiastically about the nature of consciousness, there are societies and regular conferences on the topic, and some say that consciousness is the greatest challenge for twenty-first century science. Although confusion abounds, there is at least some agreement that at the heart of the problem lies the question of subjectivity — or what it’s like for me. As philosopher Thomas Nagel (1974) put it when he asked his famous question “What is it like to be a bat?” — if there is something it is like for the bat then we can say that the bat is conscious. This is what we mean by consciousness — consciousness is private and subjective and this is why it is so difficult to understand.

Meanwhile parapsychologists not only claim to have found evidence for psi (paranormal phenomena), but seem to assume that paranormal phenomena have obvious and important implications for consciousness. For example, Dean Radin’s (1997) comprehensive popular review of parapsychology is called ”The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena” and there are numerous papers on extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK) that use such phrases as “consciousness interactions” (Braud and Schlitz 1991) or “the anomalous effect of conscious intention” (Pallikari-Viras 1997) or “consciousness related anomalies” (Radin and Nelson 1989). But why are these two contentious topics so often thrown together? Are ESP and PK really the effect of consciousness? Would paranormal phenomena, if they exist, force us to a new understanding of the nature of consciousness? If so they would be most important. I therefore wish to explore this assumed relationship between consciousness and psi.

I would love to be able to provide a fair and unbiased assessment of the evidence for psi and decide whether it exists or not. But this is simply impossible. Many people have tried and failed. In some of the best debates in parapsychology the proponents and critics have ended up simply agreeing to differ (e.g., Hyman and Honorton 1986; Hyman 1995; Utts 1995) or failing to reach any agreement (Milton and Wiseman 1999). The only truly scientific position seems to be to remain on the fence, and yet to do so makes progress difficult, if not impossible.

For this reason, if for no other, you have to jump to one side or other of the fence — and preferably be prepared to jump back again if future evidence proves you wrong. I have jumped onto the side of concluding that psi does not exist. My reasons derive from nearly thirty years of working in, and observing, the field of parapsychology (Blackmore 1996). During that time various experimental paradigms have been claimed as providing a repeatable demonstration of psi and several have been shown to be false. For example, in the 1950s the London University mathematician Samuel Soal claimed convincing evidence of telepathy with his special subject Basil Shackleton, with odds estimated at 1035 against the effect being due to chance (Soal and Bateman 1954). These results convinced a whole generation of researchers and it took more than thirty years to show that Soal had, in fact, cheated (Markwick 1978). Promising animal precognition experiments were blighted by the discovery of fraud (Rhine 1974) and the early remote viewing experiments were found to be susceptible to subtle cues which could have produced the positive results (Marks and Kammann 1980). As Hyman (1995, 349) puts it, “Historically, each new paradigm in parapsychology has appeared to its designers and contemporary critics as relatively flawless. Only subsequently did previously unrecognized drawbacks come to light.”

The Ganzfeld Experiments

The most successful paradigm during that time, and the one I shall concentrate on, has undoubtedly been the ganzfeld. Subjects in a ganzfeld experiment lie comfortably, listening to white noise or seashore sounds through headphones, and wear halved ping-pong balls over their eyes, seeing nothing but a uniform white or pink field (the ganzfeld). By reducing patterned sensory input, this procedure is thought to induce a psi-conducive state of consciousness. A sender in a distant room, meanwhile, views a picture or video clip. After half an hour or so the subject is shown four such pictures or videos and is asked to choose which was the target. It is claimed that they can do this far better than would be expected by chance.

The first ganzfeld experiment was published in 1974 (Honorton and Harper 1974). Other researchers tried to replicate the findings, and there followed many years of argument and of improving techniques, culminating in the 1985 "Great Ganzfeld Debate” between Honorton (one of the originators of the method) and Hyman (a well-known critic). By this time several other researchers claimed positive results, often with quite large effect sizes. Both Hyman (1985) and Honorton (1985) carried out meta-analyses but came to opposite conclusions. Hyman argued that the results could all be due to methodological errors and multiple analyses, while Honorton claimed that the effect size did not depend on the number of flaws in the experiments and that the results were consistent, did not depend on any one experimenter, and revealed certain regular features of ESP. In a “joint communiquŽ” (Hyman and Honorton 1986) they detailed their points of agreement and disagreement and made recommendations for the conduct of future ganzfeld experiments

The ganzfeld achieved scientific respectability in 1994 when Bem and Honorton published a report in the prestigious journal Psychological Bulletin, bringing the research to the notice of a far wider audience. They republished Honorton’s earlier meta-analysis and reported impressive new results with a fully automated ganzfeld procedure — the Princeton autoganzfeld — claiming finally to have demonstrated a repeatable experiment. Not long afterwards Wiseman, Smith, and Kornbrot (1996) suggested that acoustic leakage might have been possible in the original autoganzfeld. This hypothesis was difficult to assess after the fact because by then the laboratory at Princeton had been dismantled. However, Bierman (1999) carried out secondary analyses which suggested that sensory leakage could not account for the results. Since then further successes have been reported from a new ganzfeld laboratory in Gothenburg, Sweden (Parker 2000), and at Edinburgh, where the security measures are very tight indeed (Dalton, Morris, Delanoy, Radin, Taylor, and Wiseman 1996). The debate continues

How can one draw reliable and impartial conclusions in such circumstances? I do not believe one can. My own conclusion is based not just on reading these published papers but also on my personal experience over many years. I have carried out numerous experiments of many kinds and never found any convincing evidence for psi (Blackmore 1996). I tried my first ganzfeld experiment in 1978, when the procedure was new. Failing to get results myself I went to visit Sargent’s laboratory in Cambridge where some of the best ganzfeld results were then being obtained. Note that in Honorton’s database nine of the twenty-eight experiments came from Sargent’s lab. What I found there had a profound effect on my confidence in the whole field and in published claims of successful experiments.

Questions About the Ganzfeld Research

These experiments, which looked so beautifully designed in print, were in fact open to fraud or error in several ways, and indeed I detected several errors and failures to follow the protocol while I was there. I concluded that the published papers gave an unfair impression of the experiments and that the results could not be relied upon as evidence for psi. Eventually the experimenters and I all published our different views of the affair (Blackmore 1987; Harley and Matthews 1987; Sargent 1987). The main experimenter left the field altogether

I would not refer to this depressing incident again but for one fact. The Cambridge data are all there in the Bem and Honorton review but unacknowledged. Out of twenty-eight studies included, nine came from the Cambridge lab, more than any other single laboratory, and they had the second highest effect size after Honorton’s own studies. Bem and Honorton do point out that one of the laboratories contributed nine of the studies but they do not say which one. Not a word of doubt is expressed, no references to my investigation are given, and no casual reader could guess there was such controversy over a third of the studies in the database

Of course the new autoganzfeld results appear even better. Perhaps errors from the past do not matter if there really is a repeatable experiment. The problem is that my personal experience conflicts with the successes I read about in the literature and I cannot ignore either side. I cannot ignore other people’s work because science is a collective enterprise and publication is the main way of sharing our findings. On the other hand I cannot ignore my own findings — there would be no point in doing science, or investigating other people’s work, if I did. The only honest reaction to the claims of psi in the ganzfeld is for me to say “I don't know but I doubt it.”

Similar problems occur in all areas of parapsychology. The CIA recently released details of more than twenty years of research into remote viewing and a new debate erupted over these results (Hyman 1995; Utts 1995). (See Ray Hyman, “Evaluation of the Military’s Twenty-Year Program in Psychic Spying” and ”The Evidence for Psychic Functioning: Claims vs. Reality,” both in Skeptical Inquirer March/April 1996.) Whenever strong claims are made critics from both inside and outside of parapsychology get to work — as they should — but rarely is a final answer forthcoming.

These are some of the reasons why I cannot give a definitive and unbiased answer to my question “Are there any paranormal phenomena?” I can only give a personal and biased answer — that is, “probably not.”

But what if I am wrong and psi does really exist? What would this tell us about consciousness?

A common view seems to be something like this: If ESP exists it proves that mental phenomena are independent of space and time, and that information can get “directly into consciousness” without the need for sensory transduction or perceptual processing. If PK (psychokinesis) exists it proves that mind can reach out beyond the brain to affect things directly at a distance, i.e., that consciousness has a power of its own.

I suspect that it is a desire for this “power of consciousness” that fuels much enthusiasm for the paranormal. Parapsychologists have often been accused of wanting to prove the existence of the soul, and convincingly denied it (Alcock 1987). I suggest instead that parapsychologists want to prove the power of consciousness. In philosopher Dan Dennett’s (1995) terms they are looking for "skyhooks” rather than “cranes.” They want to find that consciousness can do things all by itself, without dependence on a complicated, physical, and highly evolved brain.

I have two reasons for doubting that they will succeed. First, parapsychologists must demonstrate that psi has something to do with consciousness and they have not yet done this. Second, there are theoretical reasons why I believe the attempt is doomed.

The Missing Link Between Psi and Consciousness

To make their case that psi actually involves consciousness, experiments rather different from those commonly done will be needed. Let’s consider the ganzfeld again. Do the results show that consciousness, in the sense of subjectivity or subjective experience, is involved in any way?

I would say no. There are several ways in which consciousness might, arguably, be involved in the ganzfeld, but there appears to be no direct evidence that it is. For example, are subjects conscious of their own success? Even in a very successful experiment the hits are mixed with many misses and the subjects themselves cannot say which is which (if they could the successful trials could be separated out and even better results obtained). In other words, the subject is unaware of the ESP even when it is occurring. Indeed in other contexts there have been claims that psi occurs unconsciously and can be detected only by physiological monitoring, such as in remote staring experiments (Braud, Shafer, and Andrews 1993) or by using sophisticated brain recording techniques (e.g., Don, McDonough, and Warren 1998).

The ganzfeld does involve a kind of mild altered state of consciousness. Indeed Honorton first used the technique as a way of deliberately inducing a “psi conducive state.” However, it has never been shown that this is a necessary concomitant of ESP in the ganzfeld. Experiments to do this might, for example, compare the scores of subjects who reported entering a deep altered state with those who did not. Or they might vary the ganzfeld conditions to be more or less effective at inducing altered states and compare the results. These kinds of experiments have not been done. In the absence of appropriate control conditions we have no idea what it is about the ganzfeld that is the source of its apparent success. It might be consciousness or the state of consciousness; it might be the time spent in the session, the personality of the experimenter, the color of the light shining on the subject’s eyes, or any of a huge number of untested variables. There is simply no evidence that consciousness is involved in any way.

Another example is recent experiments on the remote detection of staring (e.g., Braud, Shafer, and Andrews 1993). It has long been claimed that people can tell when someone else is looking at them, even from behind. Ingenious experiments now use video cameras and isolated subjects to test this claim. Results suggest that the staring and non-staring periods can be distinguished by physiological responses in the person being stared at. In other words, they are able to detect the staring — but not consciously. Oddly enough, these results are often described in terms of “consciousness interactions” even though the detection is explicitly non-conscious.

In related experiments subjects are asked to influence biological systems such as another person’s blood pressure or muscular activity, the spatial orientation of fish, movements of small mammals, or the rate of haemolysis of red blood cells. Influence and non-influence periods are randomly allocated and effects detected from the comparison. Braud and Schlitz (1991) call these "consciousness interactions with remote biological systems.” Yet again, I am not convinced that these data need have anything to do with consciousness. If the data are genuine then I agree with the authors that they show “a profound interconnectedness between the influencers and the influencees in these experiments” (p. 41). But what could be responsible? Any number of things may change in the influencer — such as muscle tone, cortical arousal, expectation, the firing of specific neurons, the activity in different neural nets, and so on. If there is such a thing as PK it might be related to any of these variables. For example some unknown force might emanate when a particular cortical firing pattern occurs and this be more likely when the influencer is trying to influence the system. Such an effect need have nothing to do with consciousness or subjectivity at all.

In PK experiments the claim that consciousness is involved is again made explicit, as in the title “The effects of consciousness on physical systems” (Radin and Nelson 1989). Yet, as far as I can see, there is no justification for this. In these experiments a subject typically sits in front of a computer screen and tries to influence the output of a random number generator (RNG), whose output is reflected in the display. Alternatively they might listen to randomly generated tones with the intention of making more of the tones high, or low, as requested, or they might try to affect the fall of randomly scattered balls or various other systems. The direction of aim is usually randomized and appropriate control trials are often run. It is claimed that, in extremely large numbers of trials, subjects are able to influence the output of the RNG. Is this an effect of consciousness on a physical system?

I don't see why. The experiments demonstrate a correlation between the output of the RNG and the direction of aim specified to the subject by the experimenter. This is certainly mysterious, but the leap from this correlation to a causal explanation involving “the effect of consciousness” is so far unjustified. The controls done show that the subject is necessary but in no way identify what it is about the subject’s presence that creates the effect. It might be their unconscious intentions or expectations; it might be some change in behavior elicited by the instructions given; it might be some hitherto unknown energy given off when subjects are asked to aim high or aim low. It might be some mysterious resonance between the RNG and the subject’s pineal gland.

As far as I know, no appropriate tests have been made to find out. For example, does the subject need to be conscious of the direction of aim at the time? Comments in the published papers suggest that some subjects actually do better when not thinking about the task, or when reading a magazine or being distracted in some other way, suggesting that conscious intent might even be counterproductive.

Perhaps this is not what is meant by consciousness here, but if not, then what is meant? Perhaps it is enough for the person to be conscious (i.e., awake), or perhaps the very presence of a person implies the presence of consciousness. In any case, to identify that the effect is actually due to consciousness, relevant experiments will have to be done. They might compare conditions in which subjects did or did not consciously know the target direction. Subjects might be asked on some trials to think consciously about the target and on others be distracted, or they might be put into different states of consciousness (or even unconsciousness) to see whether this affected the outcome. Such experiments might begin to substantiate the claim that consciousness is involved. Until then, it remains speculation.

Some parapsychologists have suggested to me that when they talk about consciousness affecting something they mean to include unconscious mental processes as well. Their claim would then be equivalent to saying that something (anything) about the person’s mind or brain affects it. However, if the term consciousness is broadened so far beyond the subjective, then we leave behind the really interesting questions that consciousness raises and, indeed, the whole reason why so many psychologists and philosophers are interested in consciousness at all. If we stick to subjectivity then I see no reason at all why paranormal claims, whether true or false, necessarily help us understand consciousness.

Theoretical Problems

The second reason I doubt that the paranormal power of consciousness will ever be proven is more theoretical. As our understanding of conscious experience progresses, the desire to find the “power of consciousness” sets parapsychology ever more against the rest of science (which may, of course, be part of its appeal). The more we look into the workings of the brain the less it looks like a machine run by a conscious self and the more it seems capable of getting on without one (e.g., Churchland and Sejnowski 1992; Crick 1994). There is no place inside the brain where consciousness resides, where mental images are "viewed,” or where instructions are “issued” (Dennett 1991). There is just massive parallel throughput with no obvious center.

Experiments such as those by Libet (1985) suggest that conscious experience takes some time to build up and is much too slow to be responsible for making things happen. For example, in sensory experiments he showed that about half a second of continuous activity in sensory cortex was required for conscious sensation, and in experiments on deliberate spontaneous action he showed that about the same delay occurred between the onset of the readiness potential in motor cortex and the timed decision to act — a long time in neuronal terms. Though these experiments are controversial (see the commentaries on Libet 1985; and Dennett 1991) they add to the growing impression that actions and decisions are made rapidly and only later does the brain weave a story about a self who is in charge and is conscious. In other words, consciousness comes after the action; it does not cause it.

This is just what some meditators and spiritual practitioners have been saying for millennia; that our ordinary view of ourselves, as conscious, active agents experiencing a real external world, is wrong. In other words we live in the illusion that we are a separate self. In mystical experiences this separate self dissolves and the world is experienced as one — actions happen but there is no separate actor who acts. Long practice at meditation or mindfulness can also dispel the illusion. Now science seems to be coming to the same conclusion — that the idea of a separate conscious self is false.

Parapsychology, meanwhile, is going quite the other way. It is trying to prove that consciousness really does have power; that our minds can reach out and "do” things, not only within our own bodies but beyond them as well. In this sense it is deeply dualist even while making reference to interconnectedness. Parapsychology is often perceived as being more “spiritual” than conventional science. I think it may be quite the other way around.

With the welcome upsurge of interest in consciousness, and the number of scientists and philosophers now interested in the field, I look forward to great progress being made out of our present confusion. I hope it will be possible to bring together the spiritual insights with the scientific ones — so that research can reveal what kind of illusion we live in, how it comes about, and perhaps even help us to see our way out of it. As far as this hope is concerned parapsychology seems to be going backwards — hanging onto the idea of consciousness as an agent separate from the rest of the world. This is why I doubt that evidence for psi, even if it is valid, will help us to understand consciousness.

References

• Alcock, J.E. 1987. Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10: 553P643 (plus commentaries by other authors).
• Bem, D.J., and C. Honorton. 1994. Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin 115 4P18.
• Bierman, D.J. 1999. The PRL autoganzfeld revisited: Refuting the sound leakage hypothesis. Journal of Parapsychology 63: 271P274.
• Blackmore, S.J. 1987 A report of a visit to Carl Sargent’s laboratory. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 186P198.
• —. 1996. In Search of the Light: The Adventures of a Parapsychologist. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus.
• Braud, W., and M. Schlitz. 1991. Consciousness interactions with remote biological systems: Anomalous intentionality effects. Subtle Energies 2, 1P46.
• Braud, W., D. Shafer, and S. Andrews. 1993. Reactions to an unseen gaze (remote attention): A review, with new data on autonomic staring detection. Journal of Parapsychology 57: 373P390.
• Churchland, P.S., and T.J. Sejnowski. 1992. The Computational Brain. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
• Crick, F. 1994. The Astonishing Hypothesis. New York: Scribner’s.
• Dalton, K.S., R.L. Morris, D.L. Delanoy, D.I. Radin, R. Taylor, and R. Wiseman. 1996. Security measures in an automated ganzfeld system. Journal of Parapsychology 60, 129P147.
• Dennett, D. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown.
• —. 1995. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, London: Penguin
• Don, N.S., B.E. McDonough, and C.A. Warren. 1993. Event-related brain potential (ERP) indicators of unconscious psi: A replication using subjects unselected for psi. Journal of Parapsychology 62: 127P145.
• Harley, T., and G. Matthews. 1987. Cheating, psi, and the appliance of science: A reply to Blackmore. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 199P207.
• Honorton, C. 1985. Meta-analysis of psi ganzfeld research: A response to Hyman. Journal of Parapsychology 49: 51P86.
• Honorton, C., and Harper, S. 1974. Psi-mediated imagery and ideation in an experimental procedure for regulating perceptual input. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 68: 156P168.
• Hyman, R. 1985. The ganzfeld psi experiment: A critical appraisal. Journal of Parapsychology 49: 3P49.
• —. 1995. Evaluation of the program on anomalous mental phenomena. Journal of Parapsychology 59: 321P351.
• Hyman, R., and C. Honorton. 1986. A joint communiquŽ: The psi ganzfeld controversy. Journal of Parapsychology 50: 351P364.
• Libet, B. 1985. Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8, 529P539. Commentaries 8: 539P566 and 10: 318P321.
• Marks, D., and R. Kammann. 1980. The Psychology of the Psychic. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.
• Markwick, B. 1978. The Soal-Goldney experiments with Basil Shackleton: New evidence of data manipulation. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 56: 250P277.
• Nagel, T. 1974. What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical Review 83: 435P450.
• Pallikari-Viras, F. 1997. Further evidence for a statistical balancing in probabilistic systems influenced by the anomalous effect of conscious intention. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 62: 114P137.
• Parker, A. 2000. A review of the Ganzfeld work at Gotheburg University. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 64: 1P15.
• Radin, D.I., and R.D. Nelson. 1989. Evidence for consciousness related anomalies in random physical systems. Foundations of Physics 19: 1499P1514.
• Radin, D. 1997. The Conscious Universe. San Francisco, Calif.: Harper.
• Rhine, J.B. 1974. Comments: A new case of experimenter unreliability. Journal of Parapsychology 38: 215P225.
• Sargent, C. 1987. Sceptical fairytales from Bristol. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 54: 208P218.
• Soal, S.G., and F. Bateman. 1954. Modern Experiments in Telepathy. London: Faber & Faber.
• Utts, J. 1995. An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning. Journal of Parapsychology 59: 289P320.
• Wiseman, R., M. Smith, and D. Kornbrot. 1996. Exploring possible sender-to-experimenter acoustic leakage in the PRL autoganzfeld experiments. Journal of Parapsychology 60: 97P128.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to the Perrott-Warrick Fund for financial support.

If you believe one set of claims, nearly four million Americans have been abducted by aliens. This figure has been widely publicized and is often assumed to mean that millions of people have been visited by members of an alien species and, in some cases, physically taken from their beds, cars, or homes to an alien craft or planet.

Personal accounts of abduction by aliens have increased since the publication of Budd Hopkins’s books Missing Time (1981) and Intruders (1987) and Whitley Strieber’s Communion (1987). There is considerable variation among the accounts, but many fit a common pattern. Wright (1994) summarized 317 transcripts of hypnosis sessions and interviews from 95 separate cases and concluded, “Numerous entity types have been visiting our planet with some regularity” (Part 2, p. 6). However, the “gray” is clearly the most common alien and over the years a typical account has emerged (see, e.g., Mack 1994; Schnabel 1994; Thompson 1993).

The experience begins most often when the person is at home in bed (Wright 1994) and most often at night (Spanos, Cross, Dickson, and DuBreuil 1993), though sometimes abductions occur from a car or outdoors. There is an intense blue or white light, a buzzing or humming sound, anxiety or fear, and the sense of an unexplained presence. A craft with flashing lights is seen and the person is transported or “floated” into it. Once inside the craft, the person may be subjected to various medical procedures, often involving the removal of eggs or sperm and the implantation of a small object in the nose or elsewhere. Communication with the aliens is usually by telepathy. The abductee feels helpless and is often restrained, or partially or completely paralyzed.

The “gray” is about four feet high, with a slender body and neck, a large head, and huge, black, slanted, almond-shaped eyes. Grays usually have no hair and often only three fingers on each hand. Rarer aliens include green or blue types, the taller fair-haired Nordics, and human types who are sometimes seen working with the grays.

The aliens’ purpose in abducting Earthlings varies from benign warnings of impending ecological catastrophe to a vast alien breeding program, necessitating the removal of eggs and sperm from humans in order to produce half-alien, half-human creatures. Some abductees claim to have seen fetuses in special jars, and some claim they were made to play with or care for the half-human children.

Occasionally, people claim to be snatched from public places, with witnesses, or even in groups. This provides the potential for independent corroboration, but physical evidence is extremely rare. A few examples of stained clothing have been brought back; and some of the implants have reportedly been removed from abductees’ bodies, but they usually mysteriously disappear (Jacobs 1993).

Theories

How can we explain these experiences? Some abductees recall their experiences spontaneously, but some only “remember” in therapy, support groups, or under hypnosis. We know that memories can be changed and even completely created with hypnosis (Laurence, et al. 1986), peer pressure, and repeated questioning (Loftus 1993). Are “memories” of abduction created this way? Most of Wright’s ninety-five abductees were hypnotized and/or interviewed many times. Hopkins is well known for his hypnotic techniques for eliciting abduction reports, and Mack also uses hypnosis. However, there are many reports of conscious recall of abduction without hypnosis or multiple interviews, and the significance of the role of false memory is still not clear.

Another theory is that abductees are mentally ill. This receives little or no support from the literature. Bloecher, Clamar, and Hopkins (1985) found above-average intelligence and no signs of serious pathology among nine abductees, and Parnell (1988) found no evidence of psychopathology among 225 individuals who reported having seen a UFO (although not having been abducted). Most recently, Spanos et al. (1993) compared forty-nine UFO reporters with two control groups and found they were no less intelligent, no more fantasy prone, and no more hypnotizable than the controls. Nor did they show more signs of psychopathology. They did, however, believe more strongly in alien visitations, suggesting that such beliefs allow people to shape ambiguous information, diffuse physical sensations, and vivid imaginings into realistic alien encounters.

Temporal lobe lability has also been implicated. People with relatively labile temporal lobes are more prone to fantasy, and more likely to report mystical and out-of-body experiences, visions, and psychic experiences (Persinger and Makarec 1987). However, Spanos et al. found no difference in a temporal lobe lability scale between their UFO reporters and control groups. Cox (1995) compared a group of twelve British abductees with both a matched control group and a student control group and, again, found no differences on the temporal lobe lability scale. Like Spanos’s subjects, the abductees were more often believers in alien visitations than were the controls.

A final theory is that abductions are elaborations of sleep paralysis, in which a person is apparently able to hear and see and feels perfectly awake, but cannot move. The International Classification of Sleep Disorders (Thorpy 1990) reports that sleep paralysis is common among narcoleptics, in whom the paralysis usually occurs at sleep onset; is frequent in about 3 to 6 percent of the rest of the population; and occurs occasionally as “isolated sleep paralysis” in 40 to 50 percent. Other estimates for the incidence of isolated sleep paralysis include those from Japan (40 percent; Fukuda, et al. 1987), Nigeria (44 percent; Ohaeri 1992), Hong Kong (37 percent; Wing, Lee, and Chen 1994), Canada (21 percent; Spanos et al. 1995), Newfoundland (62 percent; Ness 1978), and England (46 percent; Rose and Blackmore 1996).

The Sleep-Paralysis Experience

In a typical sleep-paralysis episode, a person wakes up paralyzed, senses a presence in the room, feels fear or even terror, and may hear buzzing and humming noises or see strange lights. A visible or invisible entity may even sit on their chest, shaking, strangling, or prodding them. Attempts to fight the paralysis are usually unsuccessful. It is reputedly more effective to relax or try to move just the eyes or a single finger or toe. Descriptions of sleep paralysis are given in many of the references already cited and in Hufford’s (1982) classic work on the “Old Hag.” I and a colleague are building up a case collection and have reported our preliminary findings (Blackmore and Rose 1996).

Sleep paralysis is thought to underlie common myths such as witch or hag riding in England (Davis 1996-1997), the Old Hag of Newfoundland (Hufford 1982), Kanashibari in Japan (Fukuda 1993), Kokma in St. Lucia (Dahlitz and Parkes 1993), and the Popobawa in Zanzibar (Nickell 1995), among others. Perhaps alien abduction is our modern sleep paralysis myth.

Spanos et al. (1993) have pointed out the similarities between abductions and sleep paralysis. The majority of the abduction experiences they studied occurred at night, and almost 60 percent of the “intense” reports were sleep related. Of the intense experiences, nearly a quarter involved symptoms similar to sleep paralysis.

Cox (1995) divided his twelve abductees into six daytime and six nighttime abductions and, even with such small groups, found that the nighttime abductees reported significantly more frequent sleep paralysis than either of the control groups.

I suggest that the best explanation for many abduction experiences is that they are elaborations of the experience of sleep paralysis.

Imagine the following scenario: A woman wakes in the night with a strong sense that someone or something is in the room. She tries to move but finds she is completely paralyzed except for her eyes. She sees strange lights, hears a buzzing or humming sound, and feels a vibration in the bed. If she knows about sleep paralysis, she will recognize it instantly, but most people do not. So what is she going to think? I suggest that, if she has watched TV programs about abductions or read about them, she may begin to think of aliens. And in this borderline sleep state, the imagined alien will seem extremely real. This alone may be enough to create the conviction of having been abducted. Hypnosis could make the memories of this real experience (but not real abduction) completely convincing.

The Roper Poll

The claim that 3.7 million Americans have been abducted was based on a Roper Poll conducted between July and September 1991 and published in 1992. The authors were Budd Hopkins, a painter and sculptor; David Jacobs, a historian; and Ron Westrum, a sociologist (Hopkins, Jacobs, and Westrum 1992). In its introduction John Mack, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, claimed that hundreds of thousands of American men, women, and children may have experienced UFO abductions and that many of them suffered from distress when mental health professionals tried to fit their experiences into familiar psychiatric categories. Clinicians, he said, should learn “to recognize the most common symptoms and indications in the patient or client’s history that they are dealing with an abduction case” (8). These indications included seeing lights, waking up paralyzed with a sense of presence, and experiences of flying and missing time. The report was published privately and mailed to nearly one hundred thousand psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals encouraging them to “be open to the possibility that something exists or is happening to their clients which, in our traditional Western framework, cannot or should not be” (8).

The Roper Organization provides a service for other questions to be tacked on to their own regular polls. In this case, 5,947 adults (a representative sample) were given a card listing eleven experiences and were asked to say whether each had happened to them more than twice, once or twice, or never. The experiences (and percentage of respondents reporting having had the experience at least once) included: seeing a ghost (11 percent), seeing and dreaming about UFOs (7 percent and 5 percent), and leaving the body (14 percent). Most important were the five “indicator experiences": 1) “Waking up paralyzed with a sense of a strange person or presence or something else in the room” (18 percent); 2) “Feeling that you were actually flying through the air although you didn't know why or how” (10 percent); 3) “Experiencing a period of time of an hour or more, in which you were apparently lost, but you could not remember why, or where you had been” (13 percent); 4) “Seeing unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was causing them, or where they came from” (8 percent); and 5) “Finding puzzling scars on your body and neither you nor anyone else remembering how you received them or where you got them” (8 percent).

The authors decided that “when a respondent answers ‘yes’ to at least four of these five indicator questions, there is a strong possibility that individual is a UFO abductee.” The only justification given is that Hopkins and Jacobs worked with nearly five hundred abductees over a period of seventeen years. They noticed that many of their abductees reported these experiences and jumped to the conclusion that people who have four or more of the experiences are likely to be abductees.

From there, the stunning conclusion of the Roper Poll was reached. Out of the 5,947 people interviewed, 119 (or 2 percent) had four or five of the indicators. Since the population represented by the sample was 185 million, the total number was 3.7 million -- hence the conclusion that nearly four million Americans have been abducted by aliens.

Why did they not simply ask a question like, “Have you ever been abducted by aliens?"? They argue that this would not reveal the true extent of abduction experiences since many people only remember them after therapy or hypnosis. If abductions really occur, this argument may be valid. However, the strategy used in the Roper Poll does not solve the problem.

With some exceptions,¹ many scientists have chosen to ignore the poll because it is so obviously flawed. However, because its major claim has received such wide publicity, I decided a little further investigation was worthwhile.

Real Abductions or Sleep Paralysis?

The real issue raised by the Roper Poll is whether the 119 people who reported the indicator experiences had actually been abducted by aliens.

Since the sampling technique appears to be sound and the sample large, we can have confidence in the estimate of 2 percent claiming the experiences. The question is, Have these people really been abducted? The alternative is that they simply have had a number of interesting psychological experiences, the most obviously relevant being sleep paralysis. In this case, the main claim of the Roper Poll must be rejected. How do we find out?

I reasoned that people who have been abducted (whether they consciously recall it or not) should have a better knowledge of the appearance and behavior of aliens than people who have not. This leads to two simple hypotheses.

The Roper Poll assumes that people who have had the indicator experiences have probably been abducted. If this assumption is correct, people who report the indicator experiences should have a better knowledge of what aliens are supposed to look like and what happens during an abduction than people who do not report indicator experiences. If the assumption is not correct, then their knowledge should be no greater than anyone else’s -- indeed, knowledge of aliens should relate more closely to reading and television-watching habits than to having the indicator experiences if abductions do not really occur.

I decided to test this using both adults and children here in Bristol. It might be argued that genuine abductees wouldn't be able to remember the relevant details so I needed to use a situation that would encourage recall. I decided to relax the subjects and tell them an abduction story, and then ask them to fill in missing details and draw the aliens they had seen in their imagination.

Method

Subjects were 126 school children aged 8 to 13 and 224 first-year undergraduates aged 18 and over. The children came from two schools in Bristol. They were tested in their classrooms in groups of 22 to 28. The first group of 22 children had a slightly different questionnaire from the other groups and, is therefore, excluded from some of the analyses. The adults were psychology and physiotherapy students at the University of the West of England tested in three large groups. The procedure for the children is described below. The procedure was slightly simplified and the story slightly modified for the adults.

I first spent about half an hour talking to the children about psychology and research so that they got used to me. I then asked them to relax -- as much as they could in the classroom. Many laid their heads on the desks, some even lay down on the floor. I asked them to imagine they were in bed and being read a bedtime story. I suggested they try to visualize all the details of the story in their minds while I read it to them. I then read, slowly and clearly, a story called “Jackie and the Aliens,” in which a girl is visited in bed at night by a strange alien who takes her into a spacecraft, examines her on a table, and brings her back unharmed to bed. The story includes such features as traveling down a corridor into a room, being laid on a table, seeing alien writing, and catching a glimpse of jars on shelves. However, precise details are not given.

At the end of the story, I asked the children to “wake up” slowly and to try to remember as much as they could of the details of the story. I then handed out the questionnaires. Each questionnaire contained five multiple-choice questions about the alien, the room, and table; and the children were asked to describe what was in the jars and to draw the alien writing. There were also six questions based on those in the Roper Poll: Have you ever seen a UFO? Have you ever seen a ghost ? Have you ever felt as though you left your body and could fly around without it (an out-of-body experience, or OBE)? Have you ever seen unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was causing them, or where they came from? Have you ever woken up paralyzed, that is, with the feeling that you could not move? And, Have you ever woken up with the sense that there was a strange person or presence or something else in the room? (Note that in the Roper Poll, the question about paralysis was compounded with the question of the sense of presence. Here, two separate questions were asked. Note also that the last four of these questions were based on the indicator questions from the Roper Poll.) The questions were slightly altered to make them suitable for young children, and I did not ask about scars or missing time. A question about false awakenings (dreaming you have woken up) was also included, and two questions about television-watching habits.

Finally, all groups except one of the adult groups were asked to draw pictures of the alien they had imagined in the story.

Figure 1. Examples of a “gray” and several other imagined aliens, drawn by children aged 8 to 13.

Results

Large numbers of both adults and children reported having had most of the experiences. The percentages are shown in Table 1.

For each person, an “alien score” from 0 to 6 was given for the number of “correct” answers to the questions about the alien (that is, answers that conformed to the popular stereotype), and another score for the number of Roper Poll indicator experiences reported (0-4).

For the children, the mean alien score was 0.95, and the mean number of experiences 1.51. There was no correlation between the two measures (rs = - 0.03, n = 101, p = 0.78). The drawings of aliens were roughly categorized by an independent judge into “grays” and “others” (for almost all drawings the category is obvious; see Figure 1). Twelve (12 percent) of the children drew grays and 87 did not. Not surprisingly, those who drew a gray also achieved higher alien scores (t = 3.87, 97 df, p < 0.0001), but they did not report more of the experiences (t = 0.66, 95 df, p = 0.51).

Those children who drew grays did not report watching more television. Nor was there a correlation between the amount of television watched and the alien score (rs = 0.002, n = 101, p = 0.98). Oddly, there was a small positive correlation between the amount of television watched and the number of experiences reported (rs = 0.25, n = 101, p = 0.01).

For the adults, mean alien score was 1.23 and mean number of experiences 1.64. Again, there was no correlation between the two measures (rs = 0.07, n = 213, p = 0.29). Seventeen of the adults drew grays, and 103 did not. Again those who drew a gray achieved higher alien scores (t = 6.11, 118 df, p < 0.0001) but did not report more experiences (t = 0.14, 115 df, p = 0.89).

Among the adults, those who drew grays were those who watched more television (U = 534, n = 100, 17, p < 0.01), and the amount of television watched correlated positively with the alien score (rs = 0.20, n = 217, p = 0.003).

Discussion

These results provide no evidence that people who reported more of the indicator experiences had a better idea of what an alien should look like or what should happen during an abduction. If real gray aliens are abducting people from Earth, and the Roper Poll is correct in associating the indicator experiences with abduction, then we should expect such a relationship. Its absence in a relatively large sample casts doubt on these premises.

Among the adults (though not the children), there was a correlation between the amount of television they watched and their knowledge about aliens and abductions. This suggests that the popular stereotype is obtained more from television programs than from having been abducted by real aliens.

Our sample certainly included enough people who reported the indicator experiences. Although not all the indicator experiences were included, for the four questions that were used, the incidence was actually higher than that found by the Roper Poll. Presumably, therefore, many of my subjects would have been classified by Hopkins, Jacobs, and Westrum as having been abducted. The results suggest this conclusion would be quite unjustified.

These findings do not and cannot prove that no real abductions are occurring on this planet. What they do show is that knowledge of the appearance and behavior of abducting aliens depends more on how much television a person watches than on how many “indicator experiences” he or she has had. I conclude that the claim of the Roper Poll, that 3.7 million Americans have probably been abducted, is false.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the Perrott-Warrick Fund for financial assistance and Nick Rose for help with the analysis.

Note

1. For three earlier articles in the Skeptical Inquirer evaluating and strongly critiquing the interpretations of the Roper Poll, see Lloyd Stires, “3.7 Million Americans Kidnapped by Aliens?” 17 (2), Winter 1993; Philip J. Klass, “Additional Comments about the ‘Unusual Personal Experiences Survey',” 17 (2), Winter 1993; and Robyn M. Dawes and Matthew Mulford, “Diagnoses of Alien Kidnappings That Result from Conjunction Effects in Memory,” 18 (1), Fall 1993. All are reprinted in Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell, eds., The UFO Invasion, Prometheus Books, 1997.

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