People who claim contact with friendly extraterrestrial beings are commonly called contactees, a term that first came into being as far as I know in the 1950s with the widespread public and media controversies around several prominent controversial contactees including George Adamski and Howard Menger. Later in the 1960s the word abductees came into widespread usage due to a rapid rise of abduction cases publicised by the famous Betty and Barney Hill abduction case. Those who research both contactee and abductee cases have had to deal with fraudulent contactees and abductees.

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