Alien Abductions : What Are We To Make Of These Bizarre Stories?From succubi to aliens, stories of abductions or other unsettling encounters have been with us for millennia. What explains them? Key TakeawaysAccounts of strange and inexplicable encounters with beings — including sexual encounters — go back millennia.Widespread fascination with alien abductions began in the 1950s and continues to this day.The most likely explanations for this phenomenon include self-hypnotic trances, false-memory syndrome, sleep paralysis, or posttraumatic stress.