Is "alien abduction" extraterrestrial visitation? Developing prospective study designs to gather physical evidence of alleged "alien abduction"

Proponents of "alien abduction" argue that testimony from large numbers of people indicates that intelligent extraterrestrial visitors are interacting coercively with human subjects on Earth. No physical evidence has ever been provided to support this proposition. Recent evidence and debate in the field of alien abduction research indicates that retrospective research based on witness testimony or hypnosis is almost certainly incapable of providing satisfactory evidence of the physical reality of "alien abduction". An entirely different investigative approach is required to demonstrate whether or not alien abduction is a physically real event. Appropriate methods have, thus far, not been used on anything but the tiniest scale to investigate this alleged phenomenon. This paper describes in outline the key design and statistical elements of a prospective cohort study which would use physical monitoring technologies to follow subjects over time. It makes a number of recommendations for progressive development towards a workable study capable either of delivering credible physical evidence of "abduction", or of providing increasing confidence that "alien abduction" is indeed not a physically real phenomenon.