Are Aliens Having Sex With You While You Sleep?

Most of us are familiar with the concept of alien abductions.  If nothing else, we've seen the front pages of tabloids while checking out at the grocery store and read such lurid headlines as "Are Aliens Having Sex With You While You Sleep?" In general, those who claim to have been abducted by extra terrestrials are viewed as anything from attention seekers to lunatics.  When we think of this kind of person, we envision someone like Randy Quaid's character in Independence Day; a harmless quack who just isn't quite right in the head. Like the average American, I believed that alien abductees were anomalies in society; a small group of delusional paranoids who live on the fringes of society.

Recently, while researching for an article on the possibility of extra terrestrial life, my bias regarding alien abductions was shaken.  As I dug into the topic of alien abductions, I expected to uncover a couple of hundred accounts.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that there have been as many as four million cases of abductions in America alone. Four million Americans have been probed by aliens aboard a spacecraft? The thought boggles the mind!

That means that you have a one in 77 million chance of being abducted by aliens in the United States.  Just to put that statistic in perspective, consider the fact that you are twice as likely to be abducted by aliens as you are to win a lottery jackpot. In fact, you have a greater chance of being abducted by aliens than being killed by a shark. So while it may be safe to go back into the water, you'd better keep your eyes on the skies.

Reports of alien abductions hit the news in America in 1961 with the case of Barney and Betty Hill.  The Hills, through weeks of regression hypnosis, were able to reconstruct the details of their experience aboard an alien spaceship.  Since that time, reports of abductions have increased exponentially.  Over the last seven years, there has been an average of 10,000 reports each year of alien abductions.

Most scientists strongly refute allegations that aliens are abducting unsuspecting sleepers.  Psychologist point out that regressive hypnosis is just as likely to plant false memories as it is to bring out repressed memories.  Most recently, scholars have joined to point the finger at sleep paralysis as the most likely cause for the experiences described by those reporting alien abductions.

However, these theories fail to explain the abductions that take place while the subject is wide awake or those, like the case of Travis Walton, where there are multiple witnesses to the same event. After all, the overwhelming number of testimonies cannot be ignored. Something is going on while we sleep and, at least in my case, I'd sleep a lot better if I knew for sure what that something is.

Where Have All the Good Shows Gone?

There seems to be a paucity of good science fiction shows on American television today.  But, unfortunately, that has often been the story.  A great deal of the problem lies in the fact that network executives often just don't get the whole genre of sci-fi.   In the very early days of television, sci-fi was largely just a repackaging of the popular westerns.  Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (even his name shouts "wild west") were recycled cowboys and the original Star Trek was pitched as a Wagon Train in outer space. 

 In the early days of television (which consisted primarily of variety shows), anthology science fiction, like Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, were popular.  However, as the television series took hold (I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke), networks tried their hand at the science fiction series. Historically, traditional science fiction series (stories set in outer space and involving species from other planets) are short lived. Star Trek struggled to survive four seasons, Lost in Space made it three, and Battlestar Galactica a mere eighteen months. Only during the Golden Age of science fiction on American television (in the 90's), did traditional science fiction find its niche with the Stargate  and new Star Trek franchises. By the new millennium, however, these shows were again on the decline and exceptional sci-fi shows, like Firefly (which, ironically, was a western in space), quickly got the axe.

More palatable to the tastes of the average American viewer were shows that fell into the category of urban science fiction (stories set primarily on earth, but including elements of science fiction).  Among the early shows of this genre are Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, and My Favorite Martian. The appeal of this style of sci-fi series is evident in the success of shows like Mork and Mindy, The Incredible Hulk, and the Six Million Dollar Man.  Even during the Golden Age, urban sci-fi reached the masses with shows like X-Files and Third Rock from the Sun. 

The new millennium showed a marked decline in traditional science fiction televisions series.  The Star Trek and Stargate franchises were in their decline, but shows like Lost, Eureka, and Fringe were all the buzz.  As this decade began, apocalyptic shows were all the rage; from Falling Skies to Walking Dead.  Only one traditional sci-fi show seems to be taking hold of Americans- and it isn't even produced in America.  The new Doctor Who has taken sci-fi fans by storm and promises to be as brilliant as its predecessor (which aired for an amazing 26 seasons).

We can only hope that American television networks will sit up and take note of the popularity of Doctor Who and decide that it is time to create our own traditional science fiction series. Until then, I'm not about to miss the Doctor's new exploits, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that American television will soon be back in the game.