The strange history of "alien abduction" began in 1966 with publication of John G Fuller's The Interrupted Journey, about the 1961 encounter in New Hampshire of Betty and Barney Hill. The couple said they had been taken aboard a spacecraft and subjected to detailed anatomical examinations by alien beings. The book was a best-seller, not least because a highly esteemed Boston psychiatrist used the then new technique of regressive hypnosis to uncover the Hills' buried memories. A theory was advanced that the couple had suffered a hallucination triggered by unconscious guilt about their inter-racial mar riage. Subsequent similar cases often turned out to be waking dreams, hypnosisinduced fantasies, or merely hoaxes. Since then, alien implants have become a controversial issue in UFO circles. It can be traced back to the 1967 case of Betty Andreasson, of Massachusetts, who said she had been abducted and that a tiny spiked ball had been inserted in her nose. Other cases like this followed in subsequent years. Since 1994, alleged implants have been surgically removed from people's bodies but they have been quite dissimilar in character. Of course, a small foreign object, such as a splinter, can enter someone's body unnoticed, during a fall, for example.

Is all this just part of an evolving UFO mythology, or is something really going on out there?