Close Encounters of the Weird Kind: Some Truly Bizarre Accounts of Alien Abductions

One area of the UFO phenomenon that has managed to capture both intrigue and raise eyebrows is that of alien abductions. There have long been reports of people who have, for whatever reasons, been whisked aboard supposed alien craft and met with the passengers of these crafts, and although it is already strange enough in and of itself, some of these cases are even more bizarre than others. Here we will look at a selection of relatively obscure and very odd alien abduction cases that really take the whole phenomenon out into the fringes of the weird. 

Our earliest report here takes us back to 1951 when the whole flying saucer craze was in full swing. According to the December 11 edition of the Prince George Citizen, an unnamed witness had been working for the U.S. occupation Army in Austria in May of 1951, and on this occasion, he had just driven a commanding officer from Salzburg to Linz, as he did routinely several times a week without incident. On this evening, he stopped at around 11 pm at the motor pool five miles north of Salzburg, as he often did, and as he was about to leave his thoughts of going home were interrupted by the appearance of a dark shape wearing what seemed to be a helmet and holding something thin in its hand that it pointed at the witness and which made a clicking sound. Shortly after this, the witness claims that he had been completely paralyzed, after which the enigmatic figure silently approached and put a black, square plate on the witness’ chest and strapped it around his back. The witness alleges that he then seemed to be hovering just above the ground, being pulled along by this entity on some inscrutable errand. The witness continues:

“He put a black, square plate on my chest and strapped it around my back. I could hear a dog barking away off in the distance, but I couldn't hear him walking. He must have walked very easily. I could see his outline as he walked around me. Behind the brush was a small field. In the field, hidden from the road was a round object about 150 feet in diameter. It was dark and I couldn't tell what it was. My first thought was that a spy had captured me for some reason.

The thing that lead me sort of rose from the ground and took me after him to the top of the object. He did something, either stepped on some thing or pushed some button, and a door opened and he pulled me after him down into the dark. I was plenty scared and I wondered what would happen next. I got down in the dark and I could finally feel a floor under my feet.

I knew that where I was was either glass or plastic because the stars could be seen shining up above. Then I saw the outline of what looked like a door and he pulled me through into what I later found out was a room of glass or plastic. He kept his finger, or what I thought was his finger and later saw was some sort of pencil-shaped object, pointed at me until I was inside the room. He kept it pointed at me all the time then when I was in the room he took it off me and I sank down to the floor. He went out and I could see his outline. There was a sort of shaking sensation and I knew the door to the room had been shut.”

He then claims that he could feel himself rising into the air, before coming back down to rest, saying that during this time he noticed the moon and then bright sunlight beaming upon him. This is when he looked to see a rather strange entity there with him. He would say of it:

“The next sensation I had was a sensation of rising up into the air. I had never flown before in my life. In a few minutes I could see the left half of the moon shining. I was so scared, but I figured I was dreaming. Then I started to feel my hands and feet again. I sat up and then I got up on my feet. By this time we were in the sunlight.

I looked across the ship and I could see the person that had brought me here He was standing over by the wall and there were some levers on the wall. He looked like a person, like we are. A little bit shorter than me. To me at the time he looked like a devil. He had no hair at all, I could see through the sort of glass helmet. His head was sort of a cylinder form. A very high forehead with big eyes. You could see lots of little eyes in the two big eyes. It seemed to me it looked like the eyes of a fly. No nose at all, just two holes. He had a very small slit for the mouth. It looked like he had skin, it was sort of white. There were two holes for the ears. His skull was very large. He had no eyebrows or any hair at all.

The torso was round kind of like a tin can. The legs were of proportionate length. His arms were a little bit shorter than our arms, I would say. His hands seemed to be three long fingers. I couldn't see any neck but he was dressed in material that was like silver, but it wasn't shiny. This covered all of him except the head part which had on the helmet. He didn't look at me at all.

The main part of the ship that I could see from the room I was in appeared to be round and the walls were like glass, but you couldn't see anything through them. The floor was made of glass or plastic. In the middle of the floor, under the glass, was a black plate something like I had strapped on my chest. From the corners of the plate, which looked to be about 10 feet square, black beams ran to the walls of the ship. I could see under the black plate and there seemed to be a duplicate room on the other side of the ship. I could see the same kind of levers on the wall as the thing was standing beside. As soon as we came into the sun I could feel a real burning heat, but he pulled a lever and a covering, like blue water, came over the roof. Then the sun was normal. but I could still see through it.”

The witness was at a loss for what was going on, with various scenarios running through his head, such as that he was dreaming or even dead. As he tried to process all of this, the ship apparently drew so close to the moon that the craters and other geological features were clearly visible, and then it stopped as the entity pointed its pencil apparatus downwards. After this, the ship moved again, the moon and Earth fading away into the distance. Things would get even weirder from there, as the witness explains:

“Suddenly another planet seemed to loom up in front of us and I thought we were going to crash into it. I was sure of this, but the driver suddenly stopped it again, but there was no jerk. I realized then that we were still quite a ways from the planet and he started to glide sideways down towards the ground. I looked out over the land and it looked like paradise. As we went down I looked out over the land and on one side there were red fields. On the other side there were what looked like gray-green fields. Some places in the fields there were what looked like big chimneys rising from the ground. It was bright daylight and the sun was shining with no clouds in the sky.

We were approaching the red fields and I could see rivers with blue water in them. The rivers ran straight and at intervals there were bridges built across them and I could see roads. The bridges were just like our bridges. From up high I could see no signs of life. Then we glided up to a field that was filled with the saucers like I was in. There appeared to be hundreds of them. They were of different colors, gray, gold and silver. But there was no black or red ones.

The driver stopped the ship about a quarter of a mile above them by just pulling the lever. Then we went straight down until we were about 20 or 30 feet from the ground and he parked the ship on a high platform. As we went down I could see that the same kind of people were in them like my driver. When we got stopped on the platform the driver pulled a lever and the glass slid back, and he went outside. He put the pencil-like thing to his chest and slowly dropped to the ground like a falling leaf. He then started to walk very fast along to the third or fourth saucer. He pointed the pencil at his chest again and sort of jumped up inside the ship. He was inside the ship for about 10 minutes. I could see that the thing in the other ship was smaller than the driver of the ship I was on.

While he was inside the ship! looked around at the other saucers and I could see the same type of people. Suddenly, quite a ways away I saw two ships that had people from earth in. One ship was sort of dirty looking and there was one man, one woman and two kids in it. In another saucer nearby that was kind of golden I saw one man and one woman. I was going to wave at them, but I felt scared. I was waiting for them to wave but they didn't wave. After I saw them I thought that I would have to stay here with them now.

Way off in the distance by the river I could see things moving. They were dark but I couldn't tell what they were. Maybe they looked like a herd of beef, but I couldn't tell for sure. Down on the ground I could see big red flowers growing. They looked something like our sunflowers. There were some green patches between them, but there were the flowers as far as the eye could see. The earth could be seen in patches too and it was just the same as our earth. I got to thinking that I must be on Mars. I remembered what I had learned in school about it being red with canals and it seemed to me that this must be Mars, although I wasn't 100 per cent sure because I kind of lost location of things when we had left the moon.”

After this the ship took off again the same way they had come, blazing past the moon again and approaching the glowing blue orb of Earth. They approached so fast that the witness was sure they would crash, but the ship smoothly and silently approached the very same spot where he had been whisked away and deposited there in a state of confusion and not a little fear, convinced that his mysterious captor was going to kill him. He continues:

“I was really afraid that he would kill me. He opened the door. He took the pencil-thing and pulled me out the door the way he brought me in. He guided me right back to the road. At that time I could walk, but I was very light and he was just pulling me. He took the pencil from my chest and pointed it at my head. At that moment a dog started to bark at us from about a quarter of a mile up the road and it seemed to have startled him because the pencil-thing clicked and nothing happened to me.

I knew from the first experience I should be paralyzed, so I just pretended I was so that he wouldn't know. He took the plate off my chest and went back to the ship. I stayed the way I was until I saw the outline of the saucer going off into the distance. Then I ran home. My wife was still up and she saw me all excited. She asked me what happened and I told her, "Nothing. I'm just sick.” I couldn't tell her about the experience because she would have thought I was completely crazy. I noticed the time when I got home and it was 12:20 a.m. The whole trip had taken about an hour. I think when the thing pointed the pencil at my head it was to make me forget what had happened or else to kill me, I didn't know which.”

A few years later, from 1956 there is a report from the Flying Saucer Review Volume 42 N3, which seems to flip the script and involve a woman trying to actually abduct an alien. The strange events unfolded at Choisy Le Roi, Ile de-France, France, with a witness who was driving alone in her car on her way home from visiting her parents. As she drove along the darkened road, she spied a bright white, “phosphorescent” object hovering over an empty field nearby. She says of the bonkers series of events that would transpire next as follows:

“I pulled up so as to get a closer look. And then I noticed a person about 1m 30 or so high moving about near it. And there came into my mind the thought of flying saucers, of which there was occasional talk in the newspapers, and I got the sudden idea that maybe if I could grab an occupant and take him to the newspapers - what a fine thing that would be for me! Small and thin as the little chap appeared, he would not be very hard to carry!

So, there and then, I opened my boot and got it ready to put my precious captive into it. And enchanted with my idea, I proceeded to try to pull it off. By now, around the machine, there were eight of them, engrossed in looking at something or other on the ground. The thing had the shape of a flattened pumpkin, with luminous facets that doubtless were windows. And I noticed two more of the beings, inside the machine. They were slim - as though they had no muscles. I didn't get a good view of their legs, but what I am sure of is that they had two arms, longer in proportion than is normal with us, and also that their heads were proportionately bigger than ours. The others, outside, seemed to be studying the waste ground there. When they saw that, with no signs of fear, I was approaching them, they were off, 'as quick as rabbits, into an opening in the base of the craft. The last one of them the one I was aiming to grab turned round and fixed his big black eyes on me intensely, as if wanting to say something.

But, just as I thought I was about to get him, a beam of light shot out from one of the windows on the upper part of the machine and engulfed me and paralyzed me on the spot. I couldn't move any part of me except my eyes. And it was only then, for the first time, that I really began to be scared. It is difficult to judge time during such conditions, so I don't know how long this lasted. But they had all gone into the machine, and then the brightness of the light beam started to fade, and I was able to back away and escape to my car. I got back to the car, and sat there, waiting. I don't know whether it was through fear or because I had been paralyzed again, for once more I couldn't move. I clearly heard a sort of scraping noise that sounded 'metallic' and was therefore no doubt their door closing.

I went on waiting for a while - ten minutes or so, maybe. My car was parked on the grass verge beside the road, and I was desperately anxious to be gone. But I couldn't operate the gears, and was totally unable to leave. Then suddenly the hissing noise from the machine became intensely louder, and it slowly started to rise until it was at the height of the tops of the big plane trees fringing the Choisy-le-Roi Road. The machine stopped momentarily, and then took off at top speed. To start with, the entire craft turned orange, and then passed to red as its speed increased. Immediately I was able to start the car, and I didn't even stop to see in which direction the machine had gone.”

Strange, indeed. In 1974 there was a very bizarre abduction that would unfold in Aveley, Essex, England. On October 27 of that year, the Avis family, consisting of John, aged 32, his wife, Elaine, aged 28, and their three children: Kevin, aged 10, Karen, aged 11, and Stuart, aged 7, was driving on their way to see relatives when the car suddenly began to inexplicably rock back and forth. The two adults could then make out a mist enveloping the car, after which the only child awake, Kevin, would claim to see a strange light in the sky. The parents looked and could see “an oval-shaped, pale blue iridescent light, like a big star” floating over some houses, and soon after this, the radio jumped alive with crackling static that startled them and was so bad that John pulled out the wires to make it stop. At this point, they were completely surrounded by a thick fog, and after what seemed like a few moments there was a jolt to the car and they were in the clear night once again. When they got home, they realized that there were a full three hours they could not account for. Things would get stranger from there, with one report saying:

“The family reported unnerving incidents around the family home after the encounter including an object levitating There were noticeable changes in the family following the incident, Collins reports. Before Christmas that year John had a nervous breakdown and stopped working, before later taking on a job working with mentally handicapped people, something he had wanted to do for years. The job “fell into his lap”, a different direction from his usual carpentry and construction work; he would also begin writing poems about life. Elaine started attending college and reportedly grew in confidence.

Additionally, John & Elaine stopped eating meat and became far more health conscious in their nutrition, with the taste of meat/fish now making them ill. And whereas before the incident they would “enjoy a good drink”, the couple would now not touch a drop of alcohol. The couple reportedly also became very environmentally conscious, with John also quitting his “60 to 70 a day” smoking habit. Kevin’s reading age at school reportedly was “well beyond his years” whereas prior to the incident it had been reported as “backwards of his age”. The family reported unnerving incidents around the family home after the encounter including an object levitating, “clicking noises” and the sound of “Morse code”, and young Kevin reportedly seeing a strange figure beside his bed on one occasion, similar in looks to that of a clown. When questioned by Collins, both John & Elaine would admit to strange dreams in which creatures would examine them on long tables and other visions of that ilk. At this point, Collins sought hypnotist Leonard Wilder to query the couple’s subconscious and see if these dreams were masking real abduction memories.”

They decided to undergo hypnosis to hopefully unreel the cloak surrounding their memories of the night and missing time. John was the one that seemed most promising for hypnosis, and when he was questioned while under he had quite the story to tell. According to him, shortly after entering the mysterious fog, he had found himself in a room “with tall “peaceful” beings, in one-piece colourless suits.” Here, an “examiner,” “smaller than us,” with big eyes and a mouth “not like ours” examined him, and in fact there were several different bizarre entities gathered about him. The report continues:

“He asked where they came from; they showed him “a map but not a map”, and gave an explanation of which he could only remember “Phobos”. They travel, he was told, almost instantaneously. They explained how but he could not understand. A small being was present at the table; it had fur-like covering and made chirping sounds; it served the tall beings.

The tall beings had no visible mouths. John understood that their propulsion system used a magnetic “vortex”, though he had begun to mutter somewhat incoherently his responses at this point. He encountered only three of the tall beings, and only one communicated with him. When John was asked the reason for the beings visit to earth, he replied, “No visit. They are here always.” Asked where they came from, he said “There was no need for them to say,” and that they have no need to return home; “they have more than one base,” he said.

After being brought out of hypnosis, he said that at this point he felt prevented from saying anything more (following questioning surrounding the beings origin). My understanding is that the sessions were stopped there as memories came flooding back naturally outside of hypnosis. Collins reports to have kept in touch with the family and that John & Elaine would later separate with the former moving to Scotland to live with a new partner. End This case is still spoken of frequently in UFO circles: Andrew Collins did a very accurate report at the time and since; but there have been a number of articles subsequently written by others that are way off mark to say the least; for instance, contrary to some reports the witness is neither "uneducated" nor "unskilled"; far from it in fact. People seem to forget that John was an actual abductee and he reported what he believed took place; it was truly a life-changing event for him.”

A truly trippy abduction encounter was reported the following year, in 1975, starting when a three-foot wide “ball of fire” dropped into the road several feet in front of John Womack’s car as he drove along near the Ryan Mountain, in Alabama. Womack stopped the car and got out to investigate, after which the ball of fire morphed into a larger glowing disc with shallow upper and lower domes. This strange craft began to descend as it aimed a beam of light toward the ground, and as Womack backed away he claimed that a red beam of light lashed out to strike him right in the face and sent him into darkness. When he woke up, he was apparently aboard the UFO, sitting in a padded chair with a metal helmet on his head connected to a giant “computer-machine.” This would get very surreal from there. A report on the case from “Think About It Docs” explains:

“In the room were intricate looking devices and three sorts of beings; two “leaders” with nose-less faces and mouths like a porpoise’s. Three giants at least 8ft tall with hairy torsos and brutal looking faces, and six 5ft tall creatures with flipper feet, six crab like arms, two antennae, and beards, whose bodies were covered with “greenish warty lumps,” and whose faces wore a grinning expression. A large TV screen covered one wall.

One leader spoke to the witness by means of a translating machine, a small box-like device connected to the “computer", telling him that they are beings with emotions just like humans, that he would not be harmed, and shook his hand. He was then told that demons are responsible for all evil and suffering; the ufonauts use a pill that expels them. John was given a small white pill that instantly almost dissolved in his mouth. After swallowing what was left of the pill, he suddenly felt immense happiness and positive emotions. Aliens said that he was experiencing a "scientific-excorcism" and the "purest" life experience free from "demons" with only love and joy left inside his mind. After being put at ease, John started talking with the "Leader" to learn more about the aliens. He was told that their planet is 40 years distant; they live on food pellets; their ships are propelled by solar energy. They have been studying the earth for several thousand years. He also saw a strange plant with octopus-like tentacles and growing out of a pot. It appeared to be half-animal. It's trunk was about 3-feet thick and had hanging yellow balls of flowers and an orange crown on top similar to a giant honeycomb. Some of the beigns seemed to "play" with this plant, walking close to it and then running away from its tentacles.

The "leader" aliens said that the "giants" and the "crab-like" aliens were rescued by them from extinction. The witness was taken on a tour of the ship, and then given a view of the alien’s solar system. They said that humans are "interesting to study" but violent, miserable and greedy. They said that the American government is evil and "selling humanity out to demons" and that earth's only salvation is in inventing our own "anti-demon" pills and using solar energy. Aliens said that they are watching us since the times of Moses. When asked, they said that they can't help humanity themselves, because they would need to use force.”

These bizarre aliens explained to Womack that their time here on Earth was limited and that they would have to leave soon, also showed John an odd device they used to see the complete atomic structure of any object, as well as another that could see any living being's internal organs. When the creatures asked him to sit back down, Womack claimed that a conical helmet descended on him, after which he saw flashing lights and visions of many strange and wonderful alien planets, after which the lights stopped and he was deposited back on Earth. Just what are we to make of such a strange experience? It is hard to say.

In 1979, we have a report from the 1997 V42N4 issue of Flying Saucer Review, concerning an informant in Puerto Rico by the name of Héctor Maldonado, who claims that he witnessed something quite weird one morning in November 1979 while out jogging. He says of the outlandish series of events that would unfurl:

“I chanced to turn round suddenly, and there were five or six strange beings there, between 5 ft and 6ft tall, thin, with bald, biggish heads, big almond-shaped glowing eyes - just as though lit up with bright lights - not in the slightest bit normal! It was broad daylight, so it was not a case of some sort of light reflected in their eyes in the way it is at night with animal eyes. That light came from inside their eyes! They had thin necks and long arms, and long hands and fingers. I didn't note how many fingers - I was too shaken to notice it. The strangest thing was that their skin was a greyish-blue colour. I couldn't see any clothing on them - unless that greyish-blue stuff was itself something that covered their entire body, but to me they looked naked. I spotted no sign of any genitals at any time, though to be honest I didn't fix my attention specially on that.

The astonishing thing was that they had got hold of a man and were taking him off. He was a human, olive-skinned, about 5ft 9 in height, with lank black hair, and apparently unconscious. He looked as if he were petrified, with his eyes closed, and they had got hold of him by the armpits. They appeared to be very strong, because two of them were lifting him off the ground with ease. He wasn't even dragging his feet; I didn't get a clear view of his face, because I could only see him from the side. "Behind the beings, above the sea, a bit beyond the mangroves, there was a machine hanging stationary in the air. It looked more or less oval in shape, with a cupola on top, and its sides sort of fluted or grooved, and on the top it had a narrow, curved, projection with lots of lights - just like a garland of lights that you see at Christmas time. The thing was of a silvery metallic colour, and big - really big. And just hanging there in the air, not making a sound.

Suddenly one of them, who had been kneeling and seemed to be looking at something on the ground, got up and signed to me, and then I felt something as if it were inside my mind, like a voice, - but a bit strange - different from that - coming seemingly from that being. And I heard him say jestingly to the others: 'LOOK AT THAT ONE - HOW HE'S RUNNING'." (The eyewitness had in fact not stopped jogging). AND THEN THE BEING HIMSELF STARTED RUNNING, AND MAKING FUN OF ME. Then I got the impression that he said: 'Now - just look how I run,' and he started moving at a quite fantastic speed. Then he halted beside the others, and in my mind I heard him say to them 'WE'LL TAKE HIM TOO. The others replied something like: 'Not him - leave him alone'. ... Something like that. When he was mocking me he had got great big teeth - and pointed ones — like a shark's teeth.” (See the sketch based on the eyewitness's description). Next, that one that had laughed at me and wanted to take me, gestured towards me with his hand and threw something like a great big drop of some sort of cold liquid, which hit me on the chest. Where that had hit me, I at once began to feel very queer - as though my body was swelling up and I was feeling stiff. Like a sort of cramp. But I was so scared that I forced myself to keep on running. And, as I went on, that queer feeling began to lessen, and so I was able to go on.

And when I did look back, I saw that they were taking the man towards that craft. I just carried on running, and didn't want to look back, and when I did finally look back next, the craft, and they and the man were all gone. And I just carried on running until I'd got right away from there. "I was terrified. And I didn't tell a soul about it. I was so scared, and felt sure that nobody would believe me. Who was going to believe a story like that? They'd say I was mad, and I wasn't going to expose myself to that, No Señor!”

So was he mad or not? what happened to him? We may never know for sure. Most recently is a case reported to the UFO organization NUFORC in 2007, from an anonymous witness saying that this happened back in 2001. The witness says that he had been visited by the Grays since he was a little kid, and the nights preceding this particular abduction were lit up by bright lights in the sky and that he became so paranoid that he was going to be abducted that he kept a loaded firearm in his room. Then one night, it happened, and the witness says of his ordeal:

“One night in July of 2001, I was abducted. It seemed business as usual. I was called to the room of my apartment and then the flash filled my eyes, and when it cleared, I was laying on the table again. The grays usually planted dozens of acupuncture type needles in my chest, stomach, neck. Rarely they would insert a tube into my ear or throat which was quite painful. This time was the tube in my throat. As the machine was being prepared, several of the grays seemed to rush in from another room. They spoke to the ones about to experiment on me, and they all ran from the room. I felt a rumble in the table I was laying on and heard a loud explosion, followed by what seemed to be weapons fire. Several minuets passed and then a tall, armored figure wearing a blank faced mask entered the room, carrying a type of weapon, resembling an assault rifle. The figure removed the mask to reveal a very canine like face, with bright orange eyes, covered by short, blue fur. The usual abduction experience was frightening, but seeing this new creature made me feel like my heart would beat out of my chest. The being leaned over the instrument table the grays kept their tools on and began touching the objects there. Suddenly I could move again. The creature came over to me and gently helped me into a sitting position on the table. Then, in plane English, asked if I was alright. I told her(I say 'her' because the voice of the being sounded most definitely female to me) yes and asked what was happening. I rose from the table, and she led me from the exam room. Outside the room, in the large halls of the ship, there were dead bodies of grays around every corner. Creatures like her, and several other new strange creatures were at control panels and moving about the ship. The creature introduced herself at this point as Boudica(boo-dee-ca) and told me that this ship was going to be destroyed. I asked her why and what was going on. She then explained to me something I never thought of in all the time I was being abducted: The grays, in reality were a cybernetic lifeform created by Boudica's race and more than 3 dozen other races in contact with each other on the other side of the Milky Way. Centuries ago, they formed a union with each other to establish trade, travel and the discovery of new lifeforms across the universe. However, space travel was a long, difficult affair. So these large, strong alien races created the small, weak looking grays as sort of advanced scouts, used to seek out, examine and greet new intelligent lifeforms as they found it. They gray body design was chosen because the alien union thought that body shape the least threatening. They in general being tall and muscular, they couldn't see the gray body type being a threat to anyone.

As I proceeded through the ship, I noticed gray bodies being carried through the hall, some in pieces. And sure enough, in the open wounds of the grays there were servos, wires and components I could not identify in my limited experience. Boudica took me to a room filled with several other large aliens. One alien, an 8 foot tall being who appeared to have a reptilian face with a feathery red crest around its head, asked how long they grays had been taking me. I told him(?) the last 15 years and he apologized to me for all the pain and trouble I've been through. Then he promised me I'd never have to go through any of that again. Boudica told me I'd have to be put to sleep to be transported back to my apartment, because they didn't fully understand the methods the grays used to teleport people from place to place. She took a long rod like instrument from the control panel and waved it once in front of my face. That is the last I remembered from the gray ship.

It has been more than 6 years since I've been abducted. I've tried to make sense of the events on the gray's ship that night. As far as I can figure, they grays were supposed to be a scouting party to survey newly discovered intelligent races in secret. For whatever reason, they failed their mission, and would not stop abducting people and experimenting on them. So, the Alien union who created them is now in the process of finding and destroying them. It is my belief that when the Alien union finally destroys the threat to Earth posed by the grays, then they might finally make their existence known to humanity and induct us into their collection of races across the universe.”

Experiences as strange as those that we have looked at here, make the whole alien abduction phenomenon at once more complicated and more bizarre. Can we really say that these people imagined such things, or made them up for some sort of attention? If it is real in any sense, how are we to explain the utterly outlandish details detailed in some cases and the many different forms the aliens and the strangeness orbiting them take? One idea that has been floated around is that these entities can take different forms and present different technology to the observer, sort of like cosmic tricksters, for inscrutable purposes we may never comprehend and are perhaps not meant to. Another is that they are actually interdimensional interlopers or something even stranger still. In the end, we are left to wonder why these alien abductions happen, what they mean, especially in the more flat-out otherworldly cases, and how they fit into the UFO phenomenon as a whole.