On the other hand, those folks who believe they have been abducted have had measurable, psychologically traumatizing experiences. Are they real or hallucinations or the result of brain chemistry (something produced in the brain that behaves like dimethyltryptamine)? Are they visions or dreams? Are the creatures phantasms, or real beings...alien or demon?
I, of course, don't know.
But I do know that these people believe something happened to them. In some cases there is corroborative testimony from others of specific events and, overall, there is corroborative testimony of similar experiences.
The question is what is it?
A combination of fraud and shared cultural delusion.
Again, from the skeptic's dictionary (a very useful site!)
http://skepdic.com/aliens.html
There’s also consistent marks left on their bodies—symbols, across the globe . . . which researchers keep mostly secret to help weed out the flakey from the authentic.
And, there’s the cases of the gynecologist examining a baby at the end of the 1st trimester on a Tuesday afternoon . . . and after another abduction experience that night . . . examining the woman again Wed morning and there’s no baby left in the woman’s body at all.