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November 04, 2005

Alien Abduction and Recovered Memories

Speculation about extraterrestrial beings is ancient, but "alien abduction" as we know it originated in the 1960s, after a New Hampshire couple named Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been kidnapped by extraterrestrials. Betty was a fan of movies like Invaders From Mars. Her story inspired a best-selling book, a TV movie, and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Many more people began to report abductions, which in turn led to more books and movies, which led to more people claiming to have been abducted—in a sense, it was Hollywood that had abducted them.

"Beam Me Up, Godly Being: Is alien abduction real—or a creation of Hollywood?" by Karen Olsson, Slate, October 31, 2005

Posted at November 4, 2005 08:55 AM | Categories: Ay Caramba!

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