Joe Nickell

The phenomenon of alien abduction can be attributed to a dream—like state. Many so—called abductees relate how they woke up from a deep sleep and could not move, a common experience known as sleep paralysis. Other accounts of alien abduction are clearly examples of waking dreams, in which the subject is not quite asleep and not quite awake. Sleep paralysis and waking dreams have been responsible for reports of nightly visitations from strange creatures since the Middle Ages. Joe Nickell is a senior research fellow at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

In his latest book, The Communion Letters (1997), selfclaimed alien abductee Whitley Strieber, assisted by his wife Ann, offers a selection of letters Strieber has received in response to his various alien—abduction books, particularly...