THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (ET) HYPOTHESIS
Perhaps the most provocative explanation for abduction experiences is that they are essentially veridical reports of actual abductions by apparently extraterrestrial (ET) entities.9 Because more attention has been directed toward this hypothesis than any other, the perspectives of both advocates and detractors will be examined-tined in detail.
(a) Arguments Against the ET Hypothesis
Many critics of the ET hypothesis argue that in the absence of tangible proof, parsimony requires that the ET hypothesis be dismissed. The relationship between parsimony and evidence has been discussed already and will not be reiterated here. Other a priori arguments for dismissal are discussed below.
UFO sightings are not caused by spacecraft, so abduction experiences are not caused by aliens. It would be difficult to take the ET explanation for abduction experiences seriously without also taking the ET explanation for UFOs seriously. Therefore, dismissal of the latter has been used as a basis for dismissal of the former.
This approach maintains that the UFO evidence fails to support anything other than prosaic explanations. It is based on the observation that most sightings are at least potentially explainable as mundane phenomena (hoaxes, misperceptions of natural events, misidentification of conventional objects, secret military devices, etc.).
However, this only demonstrates that no single explanation provides a satisfying account of the sighting literature, not that prosaic explanations can explain all sightings.
In fact, global analyses of various UFO databases consistently produce a percentage of sighting reports that do not yield to any prosaic explanation (e.g., about 1/3 of all cases examined in the Air Force-commissioned Condon report, 1969). Rather than requiring dismissal of the ET hypothesis, these data require that it continue to be considered.
ETs do not exist. Although no one has proven the existence of ETs, there have been attempts to demonstrate the probability of advanced ET civilizations based on various astronomical and sociological assumptions. These efforts (Drake, 1976; Shklovskii & Sagan, 1966) generally estimate the potential number of advanced civilizations on the order of millions, if not billions. The existence of ETs is so statistically probable that their absence would be a far greater anomaly than their existence.
ETs would not be humanoid. The probability that alien beings would bear any resemblance to ourselves is seen by some observers (e.g., Dobzhansky, 1972) as exceedingly remote because evolution seems so dependent on both the specific demands of the environment and on the opportunistic characteristics of the evolutionary process. Accordingly, the humanoid description of alien abductors is considered enough in itself to disqualify abduction experiences as veridical. However, there are reasons why intelligent ETs might be expected to resemble human beings.
To begin with, the issue here is not life per se, but intelligent life that could master its environment and develop the kind of technology that would be necessary for space travel. Such beings would require personal characteristics that allow them to manipulate their environment, and an environment conducive to technological development. Swords (1989, 1995) has made a persuasive case that such an environment would necessarily be similar to our own, and that evolutionary pressures in such an environment would produce beings not dissimilar from ourselves. That is, humanoid ETs are not inconsistent with conventional theory and reports of such beings cannot be legitimately dismissed as inherently implausible.
ETs cannot get here from there. Another argument against the ET hypothesis is that interstellar distances are so formidable that the time and energy necessary to traverse them makes interstellar travel (and therefore visiting ETs) extremely unlikely (Horowitz, 1994). However, these problems may not be the unavoidable obstacles they appear to be.
For example, physicist Alcubierre (1994) has “shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel … faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region” (p. L73). That is, by reducing the distance to be covered rather than increasing acceleration the problem of distance is obviated without violating any laws of nature as we currently understand them; and because light would be traveling in space-time along with the traveler, no time dilation would be experienced. In addition, Szpir (1994) has elaborated on the possibility of circumventing the energy requirements associated with such an effort. Of course, the technological problems necessary to implement this scheme may prove insurmountable. But it seems premature to discount the feasibility of space travel within the constructs of accepted physical theory.
ETs would establish overt contact. The fact that abduction reports describe covert rather than overt contact is seen by some (e.g., Baker, 1989) as evidence against the veridicality of these reports. In prototypical form, the question raised is “Why don’t they land on the White House lawn?” (This question implicitly assumes that if they did, the White House would tell us about it.)