At the 1992 MIT Conference on abductions, Mark Rodeghier proposed the following definition of abductees:
To qualify as an abductee, a person must be
- taken against his or her will,
- from terrestrial surroundings,
- by non-human beings.
These beings must take a person to
- an enclosed place,
- non-terrestrial in appearance,
- that is assumed or known to be a spacecraft by the witness.
In this place, the person must either be
- subjected to a physical examination,
- engaged in communication, verbal or telepathic,
- or both.
These experiences may be remembered
- consciously or
- through methods of focused concentration, such as hypnosis.
Source: C.D.B. Bryan, Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind.