Psychological aspects of the alien contact experience

French, Christopher C.; Santomauro, Julia; Hamilton, Victoria; Fox, Rachel and Thalbourne, Michael A.. 2008. Psychological aspects of the alien contact experience. Cortex, 44(10), pp. 1387-1395. ISSN 00109452 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Previous research has shown that people reporting contact with aliens, known as “experiencers”, appear to have a different psychological profile compared to control participants. They show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief and experience, and possibly fantasy proneness. They also appear to show greater susceptibility to false memories as assessed using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott technique. The present study reports an attempt to replicate these previous findings as well as assessing tendency to hallucinate and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis in a sample of 19 UK-based experiencers and a control sample matched on age and gender. Experiencers were found to show higher levels of dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief, paranormal experience, self-reported psychic ability, fantasy proneness, tendency to hallucinate, and self-reported incidence of sleep paralysis. No significant differences were found between the groups in terms of susceptibility to false memories. Implications of the results are discussed and suggestions are made for future avenues of research.

Santomauroa,
Hamiltona,
Rachel Foxa,
Thalbourneb

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2007.11.011

Keywords:

Aliens, dissociativity, absorption, paranormal belief, paranormal experience, fantasy proneness, sleep paralysis, false memories

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Psychology
Psychology > Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (APRU)
Research Office > REF2014

Dates:

DateEvent
November 2008Published

Funders:

Funding bodyFunder IDGrant Number
Bial FoundationUNSPECIFIED

Item ID:

4223

Date Deposited:

04 Nov 2010 14:18

Last Modified:

29 Apr 2020 15:49

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/4223

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