Strangest claims of alien abduction – including the man who vanished for five days
These chilling and mysterious tales will leave you questioning the existence of aliens
EVERY year, many people claim to have been abducted by aliens.
While most of their stories either seem a tad far-fetched or have a very simple explanation, there are a few which stand out as being slightly more credible than the rest.
Here, we look at some of the most bizarre allegations of extraterrestrial encounters.
Barney and Betty Hill, 1961
The US is no stranger to claims of alien abductions, but the first widely publicised case remains one of the most famous and well-regarded.
While driving back through the night home from a holiday in Canada, Barney and Betty Hill – who were well-respected and not suspected of lying – noticed a bizarre light in the sky.
Gradually, the light moved closer until it was hovering directly above their car, at which point Barney took out his binoculars and was apparently able to see around ten uniformed figures watching them from the alleged UFO.
The terrified couple fled the scene, both reporting experiencing a buzzing sensation as they drove.
Arriving back home in New Hampshire, they were surprised to realise a four-hour drive had taken them seven, before noticing their clothes had rips they couldn’t explain, and that both their watches had stopped.
Over the next week, Betty, who later found her dress was covered in a strange pink powder, began having extremely vivid dreams about the night.
Upon awaking, she recalled being examined by “nearly human” creatures – one of whom thrust a needle into her navel.
Amy Rylance, 2001
One October night, Amy Rylance had been watching TV alone after her husband Keith and their friend Petra retreated to their respective bedrooms at around 9.30pm.
Two hours later, Petra returned to the living room just in time to witness Amy being carried out of the window and towards a “huge spaceship” by a beam of light.
Petra briefly fainted in shock, before screaming for Keith, who promptly awoke and rushed outside in search of his wife.
Although there was no sign of Amy or a spaceship, he noted the bushes underneath the window were burnt.
The pair called the police, who were sceptical about the abduction claims.
Just 90 minutes after she went missing, Keith received a call from a woman in Mackay, Queensland – an eight-hour drive away – who had found a very confused and dehydrated Amy in a petrol station.
Although unharmed aside from a few red marks on her legs and feet, Amy initially struggled to identify herself, and was taken to hospital.
Bizarrely, her body hair had also grown in a manner that suggested a considerable period of time had passed.
She later said she remembered lying on a bench in a brightly lit room, while tall figures took samples from her.
Robert Taylor, 1979
Scottish forestry worker Robert Taylor was walking his red setter at Dechmont Law, a hill in West Lothian, when he spotted a “dark metallic flying dome” hovering above the forest floor.
Robert claims became aware of a foul odour “like burning brakes” and felt as though he was grabbed by the legs before losing consciousness.
When he awoke, the mystery objects were gone, but his trousers had been ripped around the ankles and his panicked dog was barking uncontrollably.
Robert attempted to calm the distressed hound, but found he’d lost his voice and could not talk.
Although unharmed aside from grazes on his legs and chin, Robert was very weak, and had to crawl part of the way back to his truck as he was unable to stand.
When Robert finally made it home, his wife was shocked by his muddy, dishevelled appearance, and phoned the police – who returned to the site and found ladder-shaped marks in the soil above where the UFO was supposedly hovering.
Despite a lengthy inquiry, police were left “completely baffled”.
Robert, who it was generally agreed upon was unlikely to make up such stories, never sought publicity or gained financially from his alleged abduction.
Garry Wood and Colin Wright, 1992
Another case of alleged extraterrestrial activity in Scotland is that reported by ambulance technician Garry, then 33, and his friend Colin, 25.
The pair were driving along the A70 just south of Glasgow at 10pm, when they noticed a distant black object in the sky gradually moving towards them.
Suddenly, the object dropped a curtain of white light immediately in front of the van, and the pair blacked out.
They awoke to find that not only had an hour passed, but their van was now facing the opposite direction, despite neither of them remembering turning around.
The shaken-up men would later both reluctantly agree to being hypnotised in an effort to find out what had happened in their lost hour.
During these sessions, both men spoke in detail of experiencing intense pain as they drove into the light, and of being taken on board a spaceship and stripped of their clothing by three beings.
Garry also recalled hearing human screaming from a nearby room on the ship.
Classified documents released by the British government in 2012 revealed that the Ministry of Defence had taken the abduction seriously, and filed it among six other alleged alien encounters in Scotland.
Travis Walton, 1976
When a group of six loggers working in an Arizonian forest reported that their colleague Travis Walton had been abducted by aliens, police were quick to suspect foul-play.
The men said they’d been driving when they spotted a hovering saucer-shaped object emitting a high-pitched buzz about 30 meters from their truck, and that Travis had got out to examine it.
Although the group insisted they’d driven away in fear when a beam of light knocked Travis to the ground by a beam of light, sceptical cops believed they’d murdered him and disposed of the body.
At least, they did up until Travis reappeared five days later, echoing his co-workers’ claims that he’d been abducted.
Travis said he’d awoken on a table, surrounded by bald figures with heads too big for their bodies, all sporting orange gowns.
Trying to escape, Travis claimed a gas mask was forced on him, and he lost consciousness.
The logger was unable to remember anything else from his experience, until five days later he found himself walking along a nearby highway watching the aircraft departing.
The six men who reported witnessing his abduction all took polygraph lie detector tests, of which five of them passed, and the other had inconclusive results.
Hilary Porter, lifelong abductee
One Welsh woman says she has not been abducted just once, but more times than she can remember.
Hilary Porter’s earliest memory of an alien encounter saw her playing in a field behind her house aged just five-years-old, when “suddenly there was a reptilian alien in front of me”.
Hilary claims the creature – which had scaly skin, black holes on the nose and a little mouth – pulled her “towards a disc in a depression in the field.”
After being dragged aboard, Hilary claims she was stripped and thrown on to a bed, before a sharp instrument was pressed right the way up her body.
Although this is the first abduction she can remember, Hilary doesn’t believe it was the first time it happened, as when she was two she kept disappearing from her back garden and her frantic mother would find her half a mile away.
Since then, Hilary says she has been abducted countless times throughout her adult life.
