Alien Abduction Narrative Analysis

Superior Essays
In his discussion of Alien abduction narratives (AANs), Scott Scribner’s chapter section titled “Alien Abduction Narratives and Religious Contexts,” proposes that there are many religious aspects and common similarities between uncanny AANs and epistemological religious narratives (Tanminia, 2007). Scribner introduces the history of AANs and makes a clear-cut distinction between stories claiming abduction or ‘contact’, an important point, the author emphasizes. Moreover, Scribner analyzes the religious parallels and paradigms of Alien abduction narratives and reviews the context of the storytellers or ‘tellers’ of these narratives. Scribner describes that he does all this in an effort to understand how these AANs contribute to new found …show more content…
Accordingly, the author follows that it established the framework for potential, future abduction narratives. “Although reports of abductions by these beings have occurred throughout history, modern researchers agree that attention to abduction reports has dramatically increased since 1966, the year that marked the first widespread publicity about the Barney and Betty Hill abduction” (2007, p.139). Scribner correlates that various elements in the Hill’s abduction story are echoed in similar stories following this ‘paradigmatic’ narrative. These elements included in the various narratives provided by the couple further explores the dark and light fragments of the Alien abduction narrative. Scribner writes about a paranormal researcher assigned to the Hill case and noted that, “Fowler makes a significant statement late in his narrative, regarding Betty’s remarkable recall of strange events from ten years earlier: ‘We tend to forget that prior to recall via hypnosis, Betty had remembered little of the UFO incident’” (2007, …show more content…
“Narrators bring their own layers of interpretation to the collection and selection of “original” accounts, and this is important for students of the phenomenon to take into consideration” (2007, p.144). The author considers not only considers the internal factors contributing to these narratives but also focuses on the external forces at play in shaping AANs. Scribner details, “Using a narrative-phenomenological approach, I found striking indications of very human sources for the ‘alien’ actions and imagery…These include nature (the physical universe and all living things), the human body, emotions, threats of terror or violence, the experience of time, human passions, the economic real, interpersonal relationships, and awareness of suffering and death” (2007, p.143). Scribner is trying to allude to the point that these narratives no matter how weird or off-putting serve a very real purpose for these ‘tellers’ and more often than not are coming from a source that is very human. This is an important conclusion for Scribner because he mentions that the parallels within individual accounts almost always had similar contexts in terms of social and personal apprehensions. “Within individual accounts, fear descriptions were found to reflect specific personal and social life

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