Key figures
The Harvard psychiatrist who studied abduction reports, and the review that followed. 9 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Media15 Mar 2021
Former New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal published the first biography of Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, who studied people reporting alien abductions. The book drew mixed reviews, including criticism that it was uncritical of Mack's conclusions.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters27 Sep 2004
Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John E. Mack, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer best known for studying people who reported alien encounters, was struck and killed by a vehicle in London at age 74 while walking home from a T.E. Lawrence symposium.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encountersNov 1999
Psychiatrist John Mack's book, first published by Crown, drew on a decade of interviews with experiencers and argued their encounters were about spiritual change and ecological warning more than physical aliens. It reports experiencers' claims, not verified events.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters27 Feb 1996
The PBS science series NOVA examined alien abduction accounts, giving time to Budd Hopkins, John Mack and abductees, then weighing them against sleep paralysis, suggestibility and false-memory research presented by Carl Sagan, Elizabeth Loftus and other skeptics.
Photo: PBS, Public domain
Close encountersAug 1995
After a year-long faculty review of psychiatrist John Mack's work with people reporting alien abductions, Harvard Medical School chose not to censure him. Its dean affirmed Mack's academic freedom but warned him to keep to the faculty's research standards.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters16 Sep 1994
About 60 children at the Ariel School outside Harare said they saw a craft land near the playground and figures beside it. A BBC crew filmed interviews days later, and Harvard psychiatrist John Mack interviewed pupils. Skeptics cite mass suggestion after a rocket re-entry fireball days earlier.
Close encounters25 Apr 1994
TIME reported that Donna Bassett, a Boston writer, said she invented an abduction story and faked hypnotic-regression sessions with Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, who she said asked leading questions. Mack cited patient confidentiality; she repeated the account at a skeptics' conference in 1995.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters1994
Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John E. Mack published Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens, drawn from his work with people who said they had been taken by aliens. Harvard reviewed his methods and in 1995 decided not to censure him, affirming his academic freedom.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
Close encounters1993
Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack started PEER through his Center for Psychology and Social Change, with funding from Laurance Rockefeller, to study how reported alien encounters affected people's lives and worldviews, without trying to prove or disprove them. It ended in 2002.
Photo: Becket01, CC BY-SA 4.0
