On the other hand, Randles (1994a) noted a number of inconsistencies between the prototypical abduction experience and the stories of twenty British subjects asked to imagine a close encounter. These inconsistencies included more humanlike entities, almost no reports of “doorway amnesia” (failure to recall events associated with entry into the abductors’ craft), not a single medical examination, and little resemblance of apparent alien motives to those indicated in the reports by actual abduction experiencers.
Although these results seem contradictory to those of Lawson and Lynn and Pezzo, it is interesting to note that compared to the stereotypical American abduction scenario, British abduction experiencers report humanlike entities about four times more often, and medical examinations about 1/3 as often (Randles, 1994b). Therefore, the results with British subjects who are asked to make up a close encounter are more consistent with the typical British abduction report than might otherwise be apparent.
Each of these studies could benefit from tighter methodology and closer examination of the content and frequency of the generated reports. In the meantime, however, they suggest that elements of the abduction experience are found in the imaginations of the nonexperiencer population, and that consistency in abduction accounts is becoming more difficult to justify as evidence of veridicality.
Influence of hypnosis and hypnotists. Abduction narratives can be compared to determine if they vary according to the particular theoretical inclinations of the investigator or therapist eliciting the account. Also, accounts which emerge during hypnosis can be compared with those stemming from conscious experience. Such analyses have been carried out by Bullard (1989, 1994). On the basis of his findings, Bullard (1989) concluded that “the form and content of abduction stories seems independent of hypnosis” (p. 3). In a more recent examination, Bullard (1994) concludes that hypnosis is a significant factor in regard to the quantity of material “recovered,” but not in any direct way to the content.
(b) Fantasy Proneness
The concept of fantasy proneness developed out of a line of research designed to find personality traits that correlate with hypnotizability. Among highly hypnotizable subjects, Wilson and Barber (1981, 1983b) identified a group of individuals who could hallucinate voluntarily, have imaginary experiences that are subjectively as real as nonfantasized events, and who occasionally had difficulty distinguishing memories of fantasized events from those which actually happened. Wilson and Barber called these subjects “fantasy prone.”
Theoretical issues. Fantasy proneness is theoretically relevant to the abduction experience both as a source of imaginative experience, and because of similarities between the experiences of fantasy-prone persons and those of abduction experiencers. For example, the fantasy prone report a high incidence of false pregnancies, psychic and out-of-body experiences, apparitions, and vivid sleep imagery which feels “as if they are seeing something that really exists out there or that they are looking into another dimension” (Wilson & Barber, 1981, p. 365). These experiences have parallels with those reported by abduction experiencers (Bullard, 1987, 1994), suggesting that abduction experiencers and the fantasy prone may belong to the same population.
Moreover, the elicitation of imaginative abduction experiences might be exacerbated in situations where the emergence is hypnotically assisted. Wilson and Barber (1981) found that the fantasy prone represented 96% of their highly hypnotizable subjects, and described their response to hypnotic suggestions as “the kind of thing they can do independently … in their daily lives” (Wilson and Barber, 1983b, p. 377).
However, subsequent research has shown this finding to be misleading. Although a relationship between fantasy proneness and hypnotizability has generally been supported, the relationship appears to be much more modest than Wilson and Barber originally reported (Lynn & Rhue, 1988). For example, Lynn, Green, Rhue, Mare, and Williams (1990) found only 12.82%-16.6% of their highly hypnotizable subjects (depending on the measure of hypnotizability) were fantasy prone (in contrast to Wilson and Barber’s 96%). This discrepancy is related to whether subjects are selected on the basis of their hypnotizability or on the basis of their fantasy proneness. Fantasy-prone individuals are likely to be highly hypnotizable (they carry their everyday talents into the hypnosis situation), but highly hypnotizable individuals are not generally fantasy prone. In fact, relationships between hypnotizability and any measure of imaginative traits are actually quite small (Kirsch & Council, 1992).
Studies of abduction experiencers. Ring and Rosing (1990) compared a group of abduction experiencers and others reporting UFO encounters with a group of subjects (controls) who expressed only an interest in UFOs. Using a battery of tests they found that experiencers are not fantasy prone in any general sense. However, the encounter subjects were significantly more likely to report childhood experiences of psychic phenomena, “non-physical beings,” and to “see into other realities that others didn’t seem to be aware of.” Each of these characteristics is consistent with fantasy-prone characteristics originally reported by Wilson and Barber.
The authors interpreted their finding as “sensitiv[ity] to non-ordinary realities,” but acknowledged that the role of such sensitivities — as causes, facilitators, or effects of encounter experiences — cannot be determined from their study. They also acknowledged that the validity of the assessment measures they used has been largely untested, providing a further limitation on the generalizability of their findings.
In another study, Rodeghier et al. (1991) focused on subjects who met clearly defined criteria for an abduction experience. Fantasy proneness was assessed with the Inventory of Childhood Memories and Imaginings (ICMI) (Wilson & Barber, 1983a), an instrument adapted from that used by Wilson and Barber (1981 ) in their seminal study of the fantasy prone. The authors found no difference between ICMI scores for their abduction-experiencer group and that reported for a random sample of the population.
Bartholomew, Basterfield, and Howard (1991) examined over one hundred abduction experiencers and concluded that the vast majority (87%) had histories consistent with one or more of the major symptoms found in the fantasy-prone profile. However, the authors’ assessed fantasy proneness by retrospective analysis of biographical data rather than an independent test for fantasy proneness; and of the reported fantasy-prone characteristics the authors examined, only the frequency of experienced psychic phenomena even approaches that found by Wilson and Barber (1981) in their fantasy-prone population.
Spanos et al. (1993) compared fantasy proneness for “intense” UFO experiencers (those reporting encounters with aliens), those reporting only observation of distant lights or objects which they interpreted as UFOs, and control subjects reporting no UFO experiences. The authors found no statistical difference across or between groups on fantasy proneness as measured by the ICMI.
They did, however, find a correlation between ICMI scores and an intensity-of-experience scale. UFO believers who were relatively fantasy prone tended to report more elaborate UFO experiences. However, this relationship must be viewed in perspective. As the authors point out, very few subjects reporting UFO-related experiences attained extreme scores on the ICMI. In fact, even for the intense-experiencer group the mean ICMI score was only 22.4, a score which is right at the midrange of that for the general population (Lynn & Rhue, 1988). Spanos et al. concluded that their “findings clearly contradict the hypotheses that UFO reports — even intense UFO reports characterized by such seemingly bizarre experiences as missing time and communication with aliens — occur primarily in individuals who are highly fantasy-prone” (p. 629).
As a final comment on the viability of the fantasy-prone hypothesis, an experiment testing Wilson and Barber’s original description of fantasy-prone experiences as being “as real as real” is of relevance. Rhue and Lynn (1987) asked a large group of fantasy-prone subjects to hallucinate a Styrofoam cup. Although these subjects were quite successful at this task, few ascribed realistic properties to the hallucinated experience. If the fantasy prone can readily distinguish imagined stimuli from real ones, then even on theoretical grounds the fantasy-prone explanation of the abduction experience is significantly compromised.