Freaky Friday presentation: UFOs - Close Encounters

3 of 4 Freaky Friday presentations by Don C. Donderi (McGill Psychology) that shine scientific light into the dark corners occupied by UFOs and UFO debunkers:

UFOs - Close Encounters
This lecture reviews the evidence about “Close Encounters,” the most controversial aspect of the UFO phenomenon, in which humans allegedly encounter and interact with extra-terrestrial beings. Donderi will review several well-documented close encounter cases and describe his own involvement in interviewing witnesses. He will illustrate a psychological science approach to these observations by describing two of his own research studies with groups of people who reported UFO close encounters. He will also review skeptics’ explanations for the close encounter reports, and discuss the outcome of a lively symposium where researchers and skeptics met at a psychological science convention in 2008.
Followed by the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind where Cableman Roy Neary is one of several people who experience a close encounter of the first kind, witnessing UFOs flying through the night sky. He is subsequently haunted by a mountain like image in his head and becomes obsessed with discovering what it represents, putting severe strain on his marriage. Meanwhile, government agents around the world have a close encounter of the second kind, discovering physical evidence of otherworldly visitors in the form of military vehicles that went missing decades ago suddenly appearing in the middle of nowhere. Roy and the agents both follow the clues they have been given to reach a site where they will have a close encounter of the third kind: contact.