Not Just Another False Memory: Further Thoughts on the UFO Abduction Phenomenon

Abstract

It is traditional to begin responses in Psychological Inquiry by thanking the commentators. We want to be sure to do the same, especially given the topic of our target article. We began that article by noting that academic psychologists have historically been reluctant to convey the impression that fringe phenomena like unidentified flying object (UJFO) abductions are even worthy of discussion. In his commentary, Hallwhose own extensive efforts to understand the abduction phenomenon we greatly respect-claims that reports of extraterrestrial encounters are so far beyond the pale of mainstream academic speculation that, simply by studying [them], one risks ridicule and damage to one's reputation. Fortunately, the 12 insightful commentaries clearly demonstrate that not everyone is quite so timid. Again, we thank our colleagues for taking the time to respond to our ideas. The goal of our target article was to propose an explanation for why many people who otherwise seem sane and honest have come to believe that they have been abducted by extraterrestrials. We organized the article in terms of two basic questions. First, we reviewed literature pertaining to the most obvious question (Why would people claim to remember things that did not actually happen to them?) and discussed it in the context of what we know about UFO abduction reports. That part of our discussion treated abduction accounts as just another kind of false memory that could be created by the same processes that give rise to other false memories. The second part of the article was devoted to answering a related but different question: Why would people claim to remember this in particular? Stories about encounters with extraterrestrials could potentially take many forms, but, in reality, most stories share important features. People constructing alien-encounter memories typically tell stories about themselves in which they are humiliated, powerless, and in pain, and we argued that this is not an incidental aspect of the UFO abduction phenomenon. Despite the diversity of ideas expressed in the commentaries, there are at least some general points of agreement. First, no commentator questions the importance of addressing this topic. We suspect that all would agree with Banaji and Kihlstrom, who state that UFO abduction reports