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152 media coverage. Several hoaxers eventually confessed that they made crop circles; two said they created more complex patterns to prove that an intel- ligence must lie behind them.*” The other phenomenon was reports of abductions. Many people claimed to have been seized by aliens and taken to their spacecraft, where medical experiments were performed on them. This actually was not new; reports of abductions had appeared as early as 1929.** Harvard University psychologist John Mack interviewed more than 70 of the abductees. Finding that their stories were remarkably consistent, he concluded that those people had undergone traumatic experiences that could not be explained by known causes. Mack argued that abductions force us to reconsider our perception of reality; “no familiar theory or explanation has come even close to accounting for the basic features of the abduction phenomenon.” As abductions cannot be understood within the framework of Western science, a new scientific paradigm may be necessary. Mack concluded that “abductions have to do with the evolution of con- sciousness and the collapse of a worldview that has placed humankind at a kind of epicenter of intelligence in a cosmos perceived as largely lifeless and meaningless.” He speculated that the aliens might be from other dimensions.” Jacobs conducted his own research into abductions. After 325 hypnosis sessions with 60 abductees, he concluded that an alien form of life was using his subjects to produce another form of life—a secret life. According to one survey, 4 million Americans claimed to have had abduction experiences.*” Another Harvard psychologist, Susan Clancy, later proposed that the abduction phenomenon is due to a confluence of multiple factors—sleep paralysis, interest in the paranormal, hypnotherapy, memory tricks, and emotional investment. Alien abduction stories may give people a deep sense that they are not alone in the universe; their memories resemble transcendent religious visions, scary and yet somehow comforting. Like the most credible UFO witnesses, these people could not be dismissed as ignorant or crazy.’ Skeptical psychologist John Baird noted that the alien creature in these accounts usually stands upright on two legs, has a single head with a pair of eyes in front, and always demonstrates full command of the language native to the region.” Most observers doubt that the abduction phenome- non involves extraterrestrials; these experiences may stem from mental events that we do not fully understand. They may prove nothing about contact with other civilizations. UFO visits remained a popular subject for science fiction, particularly in film and television. Steven Spielberg’s films “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” portrayed extraterrestrials who came to the Earth in interstellar spacecraft as harmless, even charming. Other media presen- tations such as the film “Independence Day” and the television series “V” showed alien visitors as vicious conquerors. UFOs, extraterrestrials, abduc- The UFO Controversy