The first widely publicized case of alien abduction was that of Betty and Barney Hill in 1967. Their supposed memories of the incident were uncovered by hypnosis. It took a while for other cases to come forward, but in the 1980s and '90s, psychologists had their hands full of people seeking to explain their nagging anxieties by regressive hypnosis to retrieve experiences of alien abduction. However, the phenomena pretty much died out by the turn of the 21st century.
This was the period that also brought us the satanic ritual panic, which was also discovered through repressed memories brought out under hypnosis or other therapies, aided by the power of suggestion over vulnerable witnesses such as children. But the common alien abduction story was less stigmatizing and certainly more entertaining, giving us movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Communion (1989), not to mention the X-Files TV series. It also gave us one great lamp. Read about the rise and fall of alien abduction experiences at Aeon. -via Nag on the Lake