For the last thirty years or so I have been keeping my telescope trained on different aspects of this phenomenon by occasionally looking at what academics/scientists have had to say about it.
For example, arch-sceptic Susan Blackmore (author of a number of publications on consciousness) thinks that alien abduction experiences are a product of a condition called sleep paralysis, while the late psychologist Michael Persinger was of the view that overactive temporal lobes were responsible for what he referred to as encounters with a 'sensed presence'.
On the other hand there is Harvard psychiatrist John Mack. Having interviewed many of those who believed that they had been kidnapped by aliens, he risked his professional reputation by insisting that their stories should be taken seriously. See here:
This is a classic earlier study of close encounters and UFO's that is still worth reading:
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More recently, academics like Jeffrey Kripal and Diana Pasulka have ventured into this territory. Here is an intriguing interview with Pasulka:
"After this research I had a much more visceral, almost literal, sense of religion and religious practice."
europeanconservative.com
So am going to give this a whirl shortly:
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