Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

All human beings live awash in a sea of ghosts, visions, apparitions, fairies, aliens—you name it. The acceptability, or credibility of such experiences, seems to a large extent to be culturally determined, Sagan argues. For example, in England where belief in ghosts is widespread, many people report experiences with ghosts. There is a kind of pecking order that revolves around who has the best ghost story.

In the case of alien abductions recovered under hypnosis, studies have shown there is a strong chance that the beliefs and convictions of the hypnotist will be conveyed directly to the subject, whether through attitudes, types of questions, or other more subtle cues. In one California study, eight subjects were hypnotized and told that they had been abducted and examined on a spaceship. With no other direction, the subjects provided detailed accounts of...