Alien Abduction / Live-Action TV

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• 3rd Rock from the Sun:
  • After Mary introduces the Solomons to her brother, he tells them of the time he was abducted by aliens. Thinking his experience could compromise the mission, Sally arranges for him to be killed. Dick manages to stop her and it turns out that Mary's brother made the whole thing up.
  • An alternate ending to the Grand Finale would have played this for laughs. After Dick removes Mary's memories of him and the Solomons return to their home planet, Mary regains consciousness and gets into the now abandoned Rambler. Then Dick beams in naked, yells "Alien abduction!", and beams out with her.
• Aliens in the Family: Cookie was abducting Doug when they fell in love. In one episode, Doug invites his business acquaintance Carl and his wife Holly over for dinner. Cookie recognizes Holly as a previous abduction victim.
• Babylon 5:
  • Played for Laughs in the episode "Grail", in which the great-grandson of a human abductee sues the great-grandson of his alien abductor for damages.
  • They later do a reenactment of the torture scene from Fire in the Sky when a new race scouts for easy invasion prospects.
  • There does not seem to be any indication that the Vree have ever abducted anyone, although there is a possibility that the Roswell incident involved a crashed Vree survey ship (their ships are saucer-shaped). The source material is very vague on what exactly happened, it only mentions that the Vree are greatly amused by the huge impact a "routine survey" had on Human society. The more likely abduction candidates are the Streib (who resemble the Vree despite being unrelated) and the Vorlons.
  • "Comes the Inquisitor" reveals that the Vorlons did abduct Jack the Ripper, presumably on the assumption that no one would be eager to have him back.
  • The Minbari abducted Sinclair and subjected him to the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique before discovering that he was Valen. Sinclair met Delenn there in those rather awkward circumstances. As far as we know he never talked about it with her even after his memory was restored.
• In The Chronicle, one of the main characters claims that she was abducted several times when she was a child by at least two different alien races. One of these later returns to check up on their subjects... and remove their brains.
• One of Peter Cook's last appearances was on Clive Anderson Talks Back, playing four different characters. The first of these was a man who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, recounting the event in deadpan style. His experience, he said, made him realize how insignificant the aliens were.
• Subverted in the CSI: NY episode "Consequences". A schizophrenic woman "captures" a badly injured paintball player, thinking he's an alien and that the green paint oozing all over his gear is his blood. She also has metal colanders hanging from her ceiling and offers them to Stella and Flack to wear so their thoughts won't be captured. Naturally, they decline.
• In the Dark Skies series finale, Majestic-12 replaces an official who is about to be abducted by the Hive with the protagonist in order to infiltrate the mothership. Since the series was cancelled, the outcome is unknown.
• In Defiance, it's revealed that the Votan have abducted the crew of Space Station Bravery in order to experiment on them and create Indogene copies of them prior to engaging in First Contact. This fact remained a secret until many decades later.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor has been known to do this by accident if a companion is recruited by them wandering into the TARDIS and him taking off before noticing. Sarah Jane Smith became a companion this way.
  • The first two human companions, Barbara and Ian, stumbled aboard the TARDIS because they were worried and curious about a genius student of theirs named Susan, whose grandfather was an eccentric and unnamed doctor. When they saw that the TARDIS was bigger on the inside and saw proof that Susan and the Doctor were sufficiently advanced aliens, the Doctor felt they had seen too much and decided to abduct them. No one else liked this idea.
  • Tegan Jovanka is on her way to a garage to replace her aunt's dud spare tyre when she comes across the TARDIS and, mistaking it for a real police box, ventures inside. As a result, she becomes one of the Doctor's companions.
  • Donna Noble was another accidental example, notable for being beamed on board the TARDIS while it was in flight, which the Doctor had considered completely impossible.
  • "The Woman Who Fell to Earth": This is, in essence, what the Stenza's ritual hunt is, crossed with Hunting the Most Dangerous Game. Rahul's sister Asha is heavily implied to have been the previous target, seven years before.
• Subverted in First Wave, where the members of the Alien Abduction Support Group are revealed to be hypnotized by aliens to recall false memories as part of an experiment. Aliens don't have starships in the series.
• Is a plot point throughout Ghosted that people have been disappearing, and if they return they have been driven insane. Doctor Max Jennifer believes that aliens took his wife and destroyed his career trying to get people to listen to him. He's right.
• The aliens that supplied the supersuit in The Greatest American Hero do this to various people, although for benign reasons.
• Played with in Heroes. West Rosen was once abducted by the company for bagging and tagging purposes. When talking to Claire about the circumstances around the marks on his neck, he attributes it to aliens.
• Played with and averted in House. A child patient is being treated due to having beliefs that he was abducted by aliens. Turns out that it was false, but not because the kid was making stuff up: He actually did believe it due to the "abduction memories" being a side-effect of his birth. He was originally supposed to have a twin brother who he absorbed in the womb. We end up seeing two Grey-like aliens appearing next to House, but this is just a figment of the boy's imagination, deliberately prompted by House in order to replicate the symptoms.
• In Invasion! (2016), the Dominators abduct Oliver, Sara, Ray, Thea, and John with teleporters and put them into a Lotus-Eater Machine, where they live completely different lives. The Queen's Gambit never sank, Oliver is about to marry Laurel (still alive), Sara and Thea never became assassins, Ray is still a CEO and is set to marry Felicity, and John is the Hood. However, they quickly start to see that something is wrong and eventually remember the truth and break out. They manage to steal an alien fighter and flee The Mothership. A swarm of fighters gives chase, but the Waverider appears for a Gunship Rescue.
• JAG:
  • In "Sightings", Harm and Meg debate the possibility of this, given the blinding lights in the sky, deafening noises, and strange smells people have been reporting. Harm is dismissive of it and tries to find mundane explanations, while Meg is more open to the possibility. Harm is right, as it is revealed to be drug runners employing an elaborate cover-up.
  • In the 3rd season episode "Vanished", an F-14 Tomcat has disappeared in The Bermuda Triangle. On a helicopter flight back to shore, skeptical Harm spots that nerdy Bud is reading a book titled The Abductee’s Survival Manual and starts a conversation on the topic (see quotes.) It eventually turns out that the missing F-14 has nothing to do with aliens, but they do manage to get several vital clues to the puzzle from UFO enthusiasts.
• In Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Lois feels weird after coming home one day. A new neighbor, who is a trained hypnotist, helps her recover the memories, and she realizes that she was the subject of a typical alien abduction. When she confides in Clark, he expresses disbelief, even after she points out that he's an alien himself. However, it's eventually revealed that the memory was implanted by the episode's bad guy, who triggers a post-hypnotic suggestion in Lois several times in order to distract Superman, while the bad guy's people get away with some crime.
• An episode of The Mentalist deals with the murder of a man who believed that he had been abducted by aliens and was planning to set up a charitable foundation for other abductees. Unusually, the show never settles whether he was really abducted or just crazy.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "Beyond the Veil", Eddie Wexler checks himself into a psychiatric institution which caters to people who were, or at least think they were, abducted by aliens.
  • Subverted in "The Awakening". Beth Carter believes that she was abducted by aliens but it turns out that Joan Garrison and Kevin Flynn were trying to gaslight her.
  • In "Down to Earth", Dale LaRose claims to have been abducted by aliens but he later reveals that he made it up as he wanted the other members of the organizing committee of the North American UFO Convention to accept him. However, it turns out that Dale is in fact Agent Paulson of the Tri-Fab Commission and that he either works with aliens or is one himself.
  • In "Abduction", Cody Phillips, Jason, Ray, Brianna and Danielle are abducted by aliens.
  • In "Dark Child", Laura Sinclair was abducted by aliens in 1984. Her friend Susan, whom Laura met during her voluntary stay at a psychiatric institution, also claims to have been abducted.
• People of Earth is half Dramedy about a support group for abductees (or "Experiencers", as not all of them view the experience negatively), and half Work Com about the aliens who've been abducting them.
• Resident Alien: We learn that aliens do abduct people, and once even took an unborn baby from its mother's womb somehow. At a UFO conference numerous people talk about being abducted and other encounters with aliens. Given this, at least some of their accounts are probably true. The second season reveals that this is the M.O. of The Greys, with the ultimate goal of creating human/Grey hybrids.
• When Arnie was Put on a Bus in Roseanne (the original series), he left a note to Nancy claiming he was abducted by aliens. The end of the episode shows that was true. When The Bus Came Back, he claims he wrote that because he got cold feet about marriage, but the end of that episode shows that not only was the abduction real, he was hoping to talk Nancy into coming with him to space.
• Soap: Poor Burt gets abducted, cloned and temporarily replaced.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • As always, the series came up with an "explanation" fitting into its cosmology. The abductions were carried out by Loki, a rogue Asgard scientist performing genetic experiments on humans by beaming them onto his starship, temporarily replacing them with short-lived clones.
  • Also, there was one episode where Thor did transport O'Neill to his ship, although its subverted in that it wasn't to do testing on O'Neill as much as request for his help (since the Replicators were attacking his planet, and it was very likely the Replicators would attack Earth next).
  • The entire Milky Way galaxy is populated by descendants of ancient humans who were abducted by the Goa'uld and made to serve as slaves.
  • Stargate Atlantis reveals that a rogue Asgard faction called the Vanir have been doing this for centuries in the Pegasus Galaxy for the same reason as Loki. Unlike Loki, they have partially succeeded and have outlived their Ida Galaxy cousins. However, thanks to the Wraith, they're stuck on their poisonous planet and are unable to leave the galaxy.
• Star Trek:
  • In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday", the crew of the Enterprise accidentally abduct a 20th century US Air Force pilot during some unintentional Time Travel. Most of the rest of the episode's plot centers on trying to figure out what to do with him, having accidentally given him knowledge of the future.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation does its own take of this in "Schisms", in which the crew gradually realize that aliens from another dimension have been abducting and conducting sinister experiments on them, then wiping their memories and returning them to the Enterprise. Unusually for Star Trek, their actual purpose in doing so is never revealed.
  • This sets up the events of Star Trek: Voyager when the eponymous spacecraft is abducted along with its crew by the Caretaker, who has been doing this with species from all over the galaxy. The rest of the series involves The Homeward Journey.
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has this Played for Laughs, as the Enterprise crew needs to beam aboard two natives of a planet they are reconning for safekeeping after they are Mugged for Disguise by the Away Team. One of the abductees wakes up, freaks out, and has to be chased down by Nurse Chapel. Based on the crew's reactions, this has happened before.
• Supernatural:
  • Played with in "Tall Tales". Sam and Dean are investigating a campus where a bunch of bizarre urban legends are coming true, amongst them an Alien Abduction. It turns out to be a trickster, a Reality Warper with a dark sense of humour.
  • Played with in "Clap Your Hands If You Believe". A series of mysterious disappearances in a small town lead Sam and Dean to investigate. A group of UFO nuts are convinced that the abductions are alien in nature. Their theory seems to be confirmed when Dean is abducted (he escapes when he pulls a gun and just starts shooting everything, which, as he notes, he doesn't think anyone else had done), only for the perpetrators to be fairies, not aliens.
• The Illacks in Trip for Biscuits pretty much do this as their modus operandi. When Bajo finds this out about halfway through the series, it becomes a major plot point in regard to his parents' abductions.
• In UFO (1970), aliens from a dying world abduct humans in order to harvest them for their organs.
• The X-Files:
  • This happens a fair bit in the show. Mulder and Scully's first case together involves Alien Abduction, and later, both of them were abducted (albeit at separate times) — Scully in "Ascension" and Mulder in "Requiem".
  • Double subverted in "Jose Chung's from Outer Space", in which the fake alien abductors are abducted by real aliens... probably.

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