This Is What REALLY Happens During Alien Abductions, Psychologist Says

It’s become a well-known phenomenon - bright lights appearing over a small town, or remote road, and alien abductors emerging from a flying saucer to create mischief.

Now psychologists think they know what might REALLY be happening.

Writing in The Psychologist, Christopher C French says that many ‘encounters’ are due to people confusing what they’ve seen - such as believing that a weather balloon is a spacecraft.

But others are due to something, as French says, ‘not out there, but within our own heads’.

French writes, ‘The vast majority of those claiming alien abduction experiences are sane, sincere people who genuinely believe they have experienced alien contact. How are we to account for this?’

‘Experiences include seeing a UFO, having a ‘missing time’ experience, or finding puzzling scars on one’s body, all of which in fact could have quite mundane explanations  – but perhaps the single most common cause of such suspicions is sleep paralysis

‘To put it simply, it is as though the brain has woken up but the body has not. This can result in terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis during which the sufferer is aware of their surroundings but cannot move – and creepy dream imagery is seeping through into wakeful consciousness.’