Name: Alien abductions.
Appearance: Vague.
Age: They have been happening since at least the 1960s.
Or have they? Some people certainly believe it.
Wacky people such as David Icke? Yes, but not only them. The US navy is reportedly preparing new guidelines that will encourage pilots to report any “unexplained aerial phenomena” they happen to come across, without fearing ridicule.
You mean “unidentified flying objects”? From now on, please call them unexplained aerial phenomena, or I’ll be forced to probe you.
OK. But I thought we dealt with all this in the 1990s? Mulder and Scully proved that aliens were here. Then further evidence came to light that proved they were, in fact, fictional characters in a TV series. That is the official version, if you want to believe it.
Sounds good to me. But how do you explain the fact that people are still saying they have been abducted by aliens?
People being wrong. If only it were that simple.
It is. Are you sure you are qualified to say so? Dr Young-hae Chi, a lecturer at Oxford University, takes the alien abduction theory very seriously.
Is he a psychologist? A materials scientist? Not exactly. He teaches Korean at the faculty of oriental studies.
Oh. But in 2012, he delivered a lecture at a conference organised by Ammach, a support group for abductees. In this lecture, he disputed the idea put forward by the ufologist Dr David Jacobs that visiting aliens have a sinister plan to take over the world.
That sounds unlikely, so I agree with Chi so far. Instead, he argued that their secret breeding programme to create alien-human hybrids almost indistinguishable from humans was part of a noble effort to save humanity from environmental disaster. He has now written a book expanding on his theories.
I think that’s where we’ll go our separate ways. Does he have any evidence? Well, the recent warming of the Earth is well documented, and could lead to …
No, about the alien breeding programme. Well, there is testimony from abductees, many of whom, according to Chi, recall being “involved in sexually oriented actions with aliens or even other human abductees under the influence of mind control by aliens”.
Right. Apparently, some remember seeing hybrid toddlers and foetuses in jars on their spaceships.
Look, I believe these people may have had a traumatic experience, but is there any direct evidence that aliens exist? Unfortunately, they live in a different dimension so we can’t detect them most of the time.
I see. Like ghosts, then? I suppose so.
Do say: “Hey, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”
Don’t say: “It’s also not a good start.”
