Susan A. Clancy

Susan A. Clancy is a researcher in the field of memory, and in October, 2005 published Abducted : How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. Clancy came to the subject of alien abductions while studying recovered memories, a phenomenon her research had drawn into question. Because her original research subjects, people who had recovered memories (generally via hypnosis) of sexual abuse, proved a politically sensitive group to debunk, Clancy decided to aim instead at the claims and recovered memories of alleged outer-space alien abductees. This latter group was neither viewed sympathetically by the public, thus refuting their claims would not be politically problematic, nor did its claims of alien encounters have any scientific credibility to begin with. Therefore, Clancy could focus her work on determining how exactly people came to believe they were abducted by aliens, and how they recovered memories of such a thing, while she assumed the factual nature of their claims to be prima facie false.

The latter working assumption has of course irritated many alleged abductees, including many of the people who supplied research data for Clancy's work. She argues that while she has sympathy for their experiences—all of which she says have worldly, physiological, explanations—she is not compelled from a scientific standpoint to accept their extraordinary claims on faith alone. And, remarkably, Clancy reports that the majority of people who told her they believed they had been abducted by aliens, did not in fact have any specific memory that this had actually occurred. They simply chose to believe this was the explanation for various anomalous, but mundane, conditions they were experiencing. Those who do have memories of alien abduction, Clancy found to have undergone either hypnosis, or other kinds of processes known to distort memories, or to create false memories. She also argues that people searching for answers and for meaning are highly motivated to mold their experiences, and even their memories, to fit seemingly all-embracing explanations in which they wish to believe.

Clancy admits that her own take on the abduction experience is not likely to convince believers that they are mistaken in their claims, but she is arguing as a scientist about what is likely, and not as a promoter of Ufology about what is remotely possible or effectively impossible.

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