My first, completely unrelated point: It's not even Halloween yet, and it's snowing outside. This is going to be a cold winter. I'm not looking forward to it.

Halloween is the perfect time to discuss tinfoil hat conspiracy theories about alien abductions. A Reuters article says that alien abductees are prone to false memory.

Do you have memories of being abducted by aliens and whisked away in a spaceship?

You wouldn't be alone.

Several thousand people worldwide claim to have had such close encounters, researchers say. But in a new study, a psychology expert at Goldsmiths College says these experiences are proof of the frailty of the human memory, rather than evidence of life in other galaxies.

"Maybe what we're dealing with here is false memories, and not that people are actually being abducted and taken aboard spaceships," says Professor Chris French, who surveyed 19 self-proclaimed alien abductees.

I think a much more plausible explanation is that alien abductees suffer from sleep disorders. The Reuters article mentioned this as well. It said "[m]any of the alien experiences could be explained by sleep paralysis, a condition in which a person is awake and unaware of the surroundings but it unable to move. Sleep paralysis often leads to hallucinations and 40 percent of people experience the state at least once in their lives."

Ghost sightings may also be explained away by sleep disorders. Ghost sightings bear a remarkable resemblence to alien abduction stories. People who report seeing ghosts often see them upon awakening in the middle of the night. They also report being terrified and unable to move. That's no accident. Such ghost sightings could be attributed to hypnogogic and hypnopompic sleep. Hypnopompic sleep paralysis is "brief episodes of paralysis that occur when waking up." While both may be classified as sleep disorders, ordinary, healthy people can have them. Hypnogogic hallucinations occur after waking up or before going to sleep. These hallucinations include an inability to move, seeing vague human forms seen out of the corner of the eye, seeing balls of light, and feeling that something is sitting on your chest, making it difficult for you to breathe. All are classic descriptions of ghost sightings and alien abductions upon awakening. The last is the origin of the "old hag," alien sightings and abductions, and the succubus that have been reported in literature for centuries.

Some paranormal web sites have even mentioned the probability that hypnopompic sleep is the source of ghost sightings and claims of alien sightings and abductions. This is from Full Moon - UFO and Alien Abductions: "Or are alien encounters and abductions simply fantasies which are a result of some type of sleep disorder which happens naturally in certain people? Altered states of consciousness which occur while they are dreaming or in a state of part sleep and part wakefulness...a condition commonly known as hypnogogic or hypnopompic sleep paralysis wherein a person's body becomes temporarily paralyzed while experiencing some type of hallucination which is made more real by that person's dream."