The Human Nature Factor
Paranormal or supernatural phenomena has been a part of mankind's religion and culture since the beginning. All phenomena reported today, including UFOs and extraterrestrials, date back to ancient times. Mythology, petroglyphs, cave drawings, and statues depict beings and events startlingly similar to modern paranormal entities

Legendary creatures, beings from other worlds or other realms, mara experiences, OBEs and NDEs reflect the religious and cultural belief system of the experiencee. A prime example of this is the legend of Dragons. In European mythology, dragons were depicted as fierce, evil creatures who destroyed villages, terrorized people, and guarded treasures. Countless stories praise heroes who conquer such beasts. However, the Chinese have an opposite view of the dragon. They revere dragons which are a symbol of fertility. The legendary "dragons pearl" is said to bless the land with plentiful harvest, peace and utopic pleasures.
Descriptions and reports of various paranormal events reflect the individuals expectations of such phenomena. Using available knowledge from the media, one can easily learn the sequence and details of events during an alien abduction. Some UFO investigators say that anyone could easily fabricate an abduction account while others say that one would have to experience it for themselves in order to accurately describe such event. There is a prior knowledge by the experiencees which could indicate the use of imagination or suggestive interpretation to conclude what actually occurred during an alien abduction, NDE, OBE, or mara experience.

Keep in mind that the supernatural or paranormal, be it myth or reality, represent humankind's fundamental fears: the fear of the unknown, the fear of helplessness. It is interesting to note that most paranormal events occur at night, or in dark places, erie places which are conducive to haunting the individuals imagination and fears, and bringing to life something from the depths of it. Consider a child's nightmare. A nightmare represents their worst fears of darkness, loneliness, and the unknown, often of a monster in the closet or underneath the bed. A dream is a normal psychological process of the brain. Perhaps the paranormal is just the same.

Electro-Magnetic Influences on the Brain
A number of scientists, including Professor Michael Persinger, have conducted many experiments to determine the effects of electromagnetic radiation on the human brain. Their findings are remarkable and may change the way we look at paranormal events such as alien abductions, near death experiences, out of body experiences.

Electromagnetic radiation is all around us. It is released from high-tension powerlines, microwave ovens, lightning, and anything which runs on electricity. The brain is also a electro-chemical organ bombarded by electrical impulses. If these electric currents are disrupted in any way, it can cause hallucinations, false memories, and false experiences.

To test this theory, Dr. Persinger sets up an experiment where he blindfolds a person, places a weak electromagnetic field helmet on their head, and puts them in a sound-proof room. Then he leaves the chamber and changes the shape of electromagnetic waves entering the test patient's brain from his control panel. Different wave shapes cause different hallucinations. Commonly reported are a sense of floating, moving through a tunnel, vibrations, sudden (false) memories of childhood, a feeling of telepathic communication with another entity, bright lights, a sense of presence, even a tugging on ones leg or arm. When these experiences occur outside of the lab, one can easily interpret the experience and define it by their cultural/religious beliefs.
This explanation makes a lot of sense when dealing with alleged alien abductions. Commonly reported are electrical interference which usually precedes a UFO sighting or alien abduction. Also note that alien abductions are a fairly recent phenomenon and coincide with the increase of powerlines and use of electrical equipment over the last 50 years. Electromagnetism is also known to levitate and throw inanimate objects including those that are not magnetic. However, studies show that this only occurs when a person is near the object, giving weight to the poltergeist phenomena.

DMT, The Elf Hallucinogen
DMT or N, N-diemethyltryptamine, is a hallucinogen which is found in humans cerebrospinal fluid, lungs, brain, liver, heart, blood and urine, and is produced especially while dreaming. It is a short acting hallucinogen, lasting only 2-5 minutes, and the effect are usually gone in 15 - 30. Many cultures have taken synthetic DMT and have all reported similar "trips": Visions of intelligent beings.

Lab reports on DMT show that those who are exposed hear a buzzing sound which gets louder, and then are "thrown into hyperspace" where they have a sense of "transcending time and space", "a universe of formless vibration", and encounter a wide variety of beings which appear to be highly intelligent, having extensive knowledge of the universe and its workings. Experiencees have visions of strange machines, strange plant or plant like forms, and hear "alien" music or languages (understandable or not).
South American natives in the Amazon Rain Forest use a drink called, Ayahausca. This drink is mixed by a shaman using extracts from 2 plants; one containing DMT, the other containing its MAO inhibitor. Neither is effective if taken separately. It is unknown how the natives found these two plants and knew to put them together in order to create such drinks.

Physicist Fred Alan Wolf wrote a book entitled The Eagles Quest: A Physicist Finds Scientific Truth at the Heart of the Shamanic World. Wolf describes experiences with the drink in conjunction with shaman sacred music. He reported vibrations and earthquake-like shaking of his surroundings.
Sufis in Iran also have created a similar drink using DMT and its MAO inhibitor. They drink the potion while sitting on Persian carpets with intricate mandelic lines. They concentrate on the patterns which are supposedly gateways to parallel worlds.
Perhaps this is another naturally occurring chemical which is responsible for deceiving people who have involuntarily gone under its influence into thinking that they have been abducted by aliens or encountered angelic, demonic, vampyric, or various other elf-like beings. I am not necessarily saying that all paranormal encounters with otherworldly entities are a result of hallucinations, but some or most could be. This has been scientifically documented and is a valid explanation of a psychological encounter rather than a physical one.

Serotonin, The Sleeping Hallucinogen
The chemical serotonin is manufactured naturally in the brain causing a normal, healthy individual to feel tired and fall asleep. Serotonin is also a hallucinogen. It is a proven fact that when one is sleep deprived, hallucinations occur as a result. Truck drivers, airplane pilots, or anyone who must fight sleep sometimes experience visual apparitions of flashing, streaking, or steady white lights, ghostly or distorted faces, animals, and an increased tendency to focus on one object causing the surroundings to appear dark, creating a tunnel-like effect. (This has all happened to me before.)

A naturally occurring serotonin "overdose" could be an excellent explanation for some or most reported paranormal phenomena including: alien abductions, NDEs, OBEs, ghosts, mara, angels, demons, cryptozoological animals, vampyres, etc., which all usually occur at night when the experiencee is either asleep or resting. Such visual hallucinations (perhaps in conjunction with lucid dreaming) accompanied with naturally occurring sleep paralysis, could convince a person that such experiences are real. When asleep, tired, or in darkness, the eyes are more prone to make misidentifications of normal objects which would easily have been recognized in proper conditions. The mind can also cause an inanimate object appear to have movement.

Our tendency to personify inanimate objects is another factor which may cause or affect misidentifications and hallucinations. People often attribute human characteristics and features to similar looking objects. A heap of clothing or a hanging coat in a dark room, to tired eyes, can take on a life-like supernatural form.
These factors, along with the uncertainty that what happened actually happened, could lead a person to confirm the reality of the event under hypnosis. Hypnosis causes the mind to create false memories which fill in "memory gaps", and to be more open to the therapist's suggestions.

Conclusion
Is it all just science? Is it all just misinterpretation or fear-driven imagination? It is hard to think so when sorting through volumns of documented cases of alien abductions, bigfoot reports, and psychic phenomenon. Yet with the balance that science brings to any paranormal argument, the two seem to merge together shedding new light on our understanding of the world and ourselves. Science unveils the poltergiest that lifts the vase off the table as electromagnetic energy, yet this mysterious phenomenon is still not solved.