DISCUSSION
Facts acquire significance only when related to theory, and theory remains empty in the absence of supporting fact. For fact and theory to be of any relevance, a relationship between them must be established. This is especially important, and especially difficult, when dealing with a phenomenon such as the abduction experience. As Morrison (1972) has stated:
If we are to believe any hypothesis, however plausible or implausible, concerning new events — particularly those that do not satisfy the easy quality of being reproducible at will by those who undertake to set up a laboratory for the purpose — then we must find … multiple, independent chains of evidence satisfying a link-by-link test. [p. 280]
Mindful of this, what can be said of the various factors hypothesized to be causes of the abduction experience? Many theories that seem both parsimonious and reasonable have been advanced to explain the abduction experience. But these theories have received little empirical support, or are yet to be adequately studied.
It may be argued that any single explanation of. the abduction experience will necessarily be inadequate because the phenomenon is multicausal, and that the abduction experience as a whole can be explained only by considering all the prosaic explanations in their entirety. For example, if (as the data suggest) at least some abduction reports are hoaxes, and at least some the result of pathology, fantasy, sleep anomalies, etc., perhaps in total this can constitute a complete explanation (in statistical terms, can account for all of the variance in the data). However, the data (at least as currently available) suggest that each explanation can account for only a small proportion of all cases, and that even in the aggregate they fall short as a complete explanation.
The notion that the abduction experience is multicausal can lead to an alternative argument; namely, that it requires a constellation of factors to be present in an individual (for example, that a person must be both fantasy prone and suffer from a sleep disorder). The research so far has tried to isolate specific causative factors rather than look for their co-occurrence, but it is not likely that such an effort could provide a solution. This is because of the “conjunction rule” (Matlin, 1994). As applied to the abduction experience, it states that the proportion of experiencers with two or more coexisting conditions can never be greater than (i.e., is limited by) the proportion of experiencers with the least common constituent condition.10 Accordingly, the likelihood of explaining the abduction experience through coexisting causes is even less than for explaining it in terms of cumulative causes.
If the evidence offered so far cannot completely explain the abduction experience in prosaic terms, other explanations are required. The most prominent alternative is the ET hypothesis. But here again, there is as yet no evidence that requires this explanation. And in the absence of such evidence, the argument that abduction experiences are veridical strains credulity on many fronts.
For example, it has been suggested that we cannot remember abductions because alien procedures cause forgetting; that although hypnosis produces unreliable memory in all other cases, it produces reliable recall of alien abductions; that we cannot see the abductors’ craft because they can be made invisible; that we cannot secure an alien implant or artifact because they are made to self-destruct upon intrusion; that aliens can be constrained by no barrier because they can pass through solid matter; that space flight is no obstacle because the prohibition against faster-than-light travel can be circumvented.
All this and more asks much of the ET advocate. So much so, that an appeal to open-mindedness may be necessary for the hypothesis even to be considered. I have argued elsewhere that despite these demands on credulity such a case can fairly and legitimately be made (Appelle, 1995).
First, our knowledge base about memory encoding and retrieval does not preclude the possibility that recovered abduction memories may be veridical. Second, phenomena that seem impossible may be only a matter of technological development rather than a violation of accepted physical law. Third, it may be foolhardy to assume that our understanding of physical law is a complete and satisfactory description of nature. Relativity and quantum theory were developed less than one potential human lifetime ago, and Newtonian physics less than three.11 Given this short span of time, is it more likely that we have already achieved an essentially correct description of the universe — or that we have not?
The more prosaic explanations make fewer demands on credulity, but so far they have provided no more in the way of empirical support. Looking back on the wise instruction of Morrison, it must be concluded that the condition he describes has not yet been met. The chains of evidence linking fact and theory are still largely unestablished. But this is not, as some would have it, a reflection on the limitations of science. Pronouncements that the abduction experience is beyond contemporary science are probably wrong and certainly premature; and those who are disappointed in what science has yet established should demand more of science, not less — this means additional research focusing on those theories and evidential variables that are most amenable to empirical validation and disconfirmation. Hypotheses that have been advanced but not tested should be tested; and theories that have already been studied can benefit from additional research. A “top ten” list of such efforts might address the following: