"Alien Abduction" - A Theoretical Explanation of a Phantom Phenomenon
In the last ten years various scientific hypotheses were worked out in order to explain the phenomenon of "alien abduction". Up to now the assumption that memories of abduction are a special case of the false memory syndrome had the strongest explanatory power. But this explanation which is based on iatrogenic processes also has deficits with respect to the collective status of the phenomenon. These deficits call for a closer examination of the fictional and documentary media formats through which the tale of abduction is spread in society.
The integration of recent findings of the media sciences into the false memory hypothesis has led to a novel multiple factor model of explaining the abductions. The explanation of the abduction phenomenon as the result of the historic concurrence of a pattern of interpretation processed by mass media with a common psychotherapeutic form of practice does not rule out the possibility that some people really have had extraordinary experiences that are difficult to explain with conventional scientific models. The presented model does not want to reject such explanations in individual cases - nor can it do so. It shows though that in order to explain the phenomenon, it is not necessary to resort to anomalistic presumptions or the highly improbable possibility of real contact with aliens.
Project Leader: PD Dr. Michael Schetsche
Publications:
Michael Schetsche & Martin Engelbrecht (Hrsg.): Von Menschen und Außerirdischen. Transterrestrische Begegnungen im Spiegel der Kulturwissenschaft. Bielefeld: transcript 2008 (ISBN 978-899-855-1). [Of men and aliens. Transterrestrian encounters as reflected by the cultural sciences]
Michael Schetsche (2001): Erklärungen des Unerklärlichen. In: Zeitschrift für Anomalistik 1, S. 53-58. [Explanations of the unexplainable]
Michael Schetsche (2000): Wissenssoziologie sozialer Probleme. Grundlegung einer relativistischen Problemtheorie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. [Foundation of a relativistic theory of social problems]
Michael Schetsche (1998): Reale und virtuelle Probleme. In: Berliner Journal für Soziologie 8, S. 223-244. [Real and virtual problems]
Michael Schetsche (1997): "Entführung durch 'Außerirdische' - ein ganz irdisches Deutungsmuster. In: Soziale Wirklichkeit 1 (3-4), S. 259-277. [Abduction by extraterrestrials - An entirely terrestrian pattern of interpretation]
