History of Alien Abduction Claims - Two Landmark Cases

Two Landmark Cases

Allegedly genuine stories of kidnap by extraterrestrials goes back at least to the mid-1950s, with the Antonio Vilas Boas case (which didn't receive much attention until several years later).

Widespread publicity was generated by the Betty and Barney Hill abduction case of 1961 (again not widely known until several years afterwards), culminating in a made for television film broadcast in 1975 (starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons) dramatizing the events. The Hill incident was probably the prototypical abduction case, and was perhaps the first where:

• The beings that later became widely known as the Greys appeared (who also went on to become the most common type of extraterrestrial in abduction reports).
• The beings explicitly identified an extraterrestrial origin (the star Zeta Reticuli was later suspected as their point of origin).

If we include such clearly fictional sources as science fiction movies and pulps, the phenomena traces back to the 1930s.

Neither the contactees nor these early abduction accounts, however, saw much attention from ufology, then still largely reluctant to consider close encounters of the third kind, where occupants of UFOs are allegedly interacted with.

Undoubtedly, the Barney and Betty Hill case is one of, if not the most famous case of purported abduction ever. Barney and Betty were driving home on a road free from other cars late one night. They both saw an odd light coming at them from above. They then blacked out and found themselves back on the road, driving. The only thing odd was it was two hours later than when they had seen the light. They both went to psychologists and hypnotists. They learned of the Grey on board the ship that had abducted them. See Barney and Betty Hill for more depth.