Lesson plan

Contactee

Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases. As a cultural phenomenon, contactees achieved their greatest notoriety during the 1950s, but individuals have continued to make similar claims. Some contactees have shared their messages with small groups of believers and followers, and many have written books, published magazine and newspaper articles, issued newsletters or spoken at UFO conventions. The accounts of contactees generally differ from those who allege alien abduction, in that while contactees frequently describe positive experiences involving humanoid aliens, abductees usually describe their encounters as frightening or disturbing.

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Article summary

Contactees are persons who claim to have experienced contact with extraterrestrials. Some claimed ongoing encounters, while others claimed to have had as few as a single encounter. Evidence is anecdotal in all cases. As a cultural phenomenon, contactees achieved their greatest notoriety during the 1950s, but individuals have continued to make similar claims. Some contactees have shared their messages with small groups of believers and followers, and many have written books, published magazine and newspaper articles, issued newsletters or spoken at UFO conventions. The accounts of contactees generally differ from those who allege alien abduction, in that while contactees frequently describe positive experiences involving humanoid aliens, abductees usually describe their encounters as frightening or disturbing.

Key claims

No claims recorded.

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

No sources recorded.

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.