When you think of how an alien abduction might play out, what do you imagine? Many of us might immediately conjure up thoughts of a person out in the middle of nowhere, far from home in some remote setting, where the weirdness begins. This might seem to make sense, as why would UFOs do it any other way? Yet, there are many supposed encounters that have happened in decidedly more mundane circumstances, with people being whisked away in familiar environments and even from their own homes, and here is a selection of some such very odd cases of abductions from the last places you might suspect.

Some of the stranger UFO abductions do come from the outdoors, but not necessarily under the kind of circumstances one would expect for such spectacular encounters. One of these supposedly happened one summer evening in 1995, when a group of friends was out having a casual BBQ party right in the suburban yard of a home in Derbyshire, in the East Midlands of England. They had all been talking and having a blast until 10:30 PM rolled around and things took a turn for the decidedly bizarre. The witnesses would later claim that a very large, disc shaped craft had descended from the sky to hover over their party, after which they all suddenly fell violently ill, displaying nausea and uncontrollable vomiting. The strange UFO would then float off into the distance, but something was obviously not right.

It seemed as if there was some missing time involved, as one of the witnesses noticed that the BBQ itself had gone from glowing coals to dead ash, and the food that had sat upon it was burned to a charred crisp. When they realized all of this and looked at their watches, it would turn out that a full 90 minutes had passed, which none of them could recall. In the following days they would all be plagued by strange nightmares and feelings of inexplicable, crippling anxiety, and they then agreed to be hypnotized to try and dredge up any memories of what had happened during that lost 90 minutes. In separate sessions, they would all recall under hypnosis that they had been brought aboard that weird craft and examined in some sort of room that looked reminiscent of an operating theater but with walls that were “round, but divided into squares.” A few of them would even recall having been to other planets, and it leaves one to wonder just what happened during this otherwise normal BBQ.

More well known than this is the 1969 case of a José Antonio da Silva, in Bebedouro, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was just out for a leisurely day of fishing not far from his home on one calm day when he realized that there was someone moving about behind him and whispering. This was odd enough as it was, but then he says he was suddenly struck by a sudden paralysis, which sent him sprawling to the ground unable to move. He was then approached by several figures speaking an unfamiliar language and dressed in helmets and suits that seemed to be fashioned of aluminum foil, who roughly grabbed him and dragged him aboard a nearby cylindrical metallic craft of some sort. Once aboard, one of the beings slapped a helmet on him and things would quickly graduate from the weird to the utterly bizarre.

The UFO sped away as he was brought to some sort of large, sterile looking room. There before him was allegedly a humanoid being covered with hair and with reddish hair on its head that flowed down to its waist, and it was surrounded by several other, smaller dwarfish beings. They had in their possession all of his fishing equipment and tackle, which they seemed to be intently examining with great interest. As the frightened and startled Da Silva looked around this bizarre room, he claimed that he had seen other people in there, kept upon a shelf of some sort and awake but seemingly paralyzed much as he was. One of the smaller, hairy dwarf-like creatures approached him and made him drink some sort of dark green concoction, after which they spoke with him about human civilization and during this time one of the creatures snatched away his crucifix. After that, Da Silva was apparently taken back to Earth, where he would awaken outside of the town of Vitoria, a full 200 miles from where he had started. When he later got back to the nearby town, he would realize that he had been gone for nearly 5 days. Whatever happened to this man, it wasn’t your typical leisurely day out fishing.

Even weirder than these accounts are those abductions that have supposedly occurred within rather residential or even urban areas. In march of 1988 there was one such account from a witness by the name of Helen Thomas, who was out along with her mother Carol near Birmingham, England when they took a trip down a residential alleyway on their way to work at a nearby mill. As they went through one alleyway as they always did, they became aware of a strange humming sound that reverberated around them, followed by a blinding light from above. Both of the women reportedly felt extremely dizzy and nauseous at this time, and just as they felt they could not bear it anymore the light was simply gone as suddenly as it had appeared.

They soon realized that several hours had passed which they could not account for, and Helen’s jacket was oddly very wet, despite the fact that it had not been raining and everything around them was dry. Over the coming days both of them would experience their skin breaking out in blisters and welts for no apparent reason, and they also had frequent nosebleeds and a strange discharge from their navels. They would eventually tell of what had happened to UFO researcher Tony Todd, who was convinced that they had been abducted and arranged to have them hypnotized. Under hypnosis it would all get stranger still, as they described what had happened to them in that alleyway during their missing time.

They claimed that after the light had enveloped them they had found themselves in a bright, white room, lying atop tables next to each other and with “wet netted cloths” over them. Around them were several odd beings with large heads, very thin, long arms, and “wet, wrinkled skin.” In the corner was another, different being, who looked almost human and had blonde hair, blue eyes, and was dressed in some sort of silver uniform with an insignia upon it. These creatures then pushed glass tubes into their belly buttons, and they both had the instinctive feeling that the beings were “taking eggs” from them. One of the creatures examined Helen’s leather jacket, rubbing it upon its body and seemingly fascinated with the texture of the leather. When the examination was complete the two women were shown a display covered with strange symbols and images of violence and war. They had then been dropped off back into the alleyway from which they had been taken.

It is another weird case among many, and our next one comes from a woman who was allegedly just innocently out hanging out her wash. The woman known only as a “Mrs. G” was purportedly out on her balcony hanging out clothes when a bright light suddenly swept down from the sky to hover right above her. She says the UFO shot down a beam of light that brought her up into a craft of some sort, upon which were strange beings dressed in “tight, shiny metallic suits.” She then felt some sort of strike from behind and woke up again in her own yard, where it became apparent that several hours had passed. She apparently then went about finishing the chore she started with, and it is unclear how this story really ends.

Perhaps even spookier than these accounts we have looked at so far are those in which people have been abducted by otherworldly forces from right out of the comfort of their own homes. A stunning example of this is the apparent abduction of a woman by the name of Betty Andreasson, in the city of South Ashburnham, Massachusetts, in the United States. On the evening of January 25, 1967, Betty was in the kitchen of her home while her seven children, mother, and father were right nearby in the living room. It would have seemed to be just a normal evening if it wasn’t for the weirdness that was about to unfold.

At around 6:30 PM, the lights flickered, followed by a thin beam of reddish light projecting down through the kitchen window, and that was when Betty’s father looked outside to see five strange humanoid creatures approaching the home. These creatures apparently “hopped” towards the home and phased right through the door, after which the entire family was supposedly frozen in time. The creatures were described as being about 5 feet tall, with pear-shaped heads, wide eyes, and small ears and noses, their mouths mere slits. They were dressed in blue one-piece suits of some sort, and each hand had only three fingers. All of them travelled about by levitating, and they seemed to be particularly interested in Betty, who they led outside to a large, metallic craft outside. Betty would later relate how she had been brought aboard this ship and subjected to examinations, as one of the creatures apparently stayed behind to look after her paralyzed family. After they were done, they were all released with lost time. Hypnosis would uncover some of this, and it would be actively investigated by UFO researcher Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who found the family to be perfectly sane and reliable witnesses. Just what happened here? Who knows?

Lastly, we have a case from a witness in the Houston suburb of Pearland, Texas, who says this happened right as he was taking a nap on the sofa in his own home. He says he woke to what he though at first to be vivid hallucinations, as if he had been drugged, but it would soon prove to be far stranger. He says of his harrowing experience:

I looked to my right and saw something in my bathroom. It was small, I thought maybe a squirrel or raccoon had gotten in the house. I closed the door to trap it, but upon a closer inspection, nothing was there. I heard what I thought were voices and strange noises coming from my neighbors’ yard. From my window, it looked like my neighbors were building a very large tall bench swing, there was a red color coming from this area. I thought that the neighbors were maybe playing with lights of some sort and that this may have been the reason for the strange colors in my bedroom. This all happened around midnight. I wanted to find out what was possibly happening next door so I went downstairs. As I was reaching the stairs I noticed an unrecognizable symbol on the wall that seemed to be made of blue light. When I touched it, it felt warm. This light also cast a blue reflection on the white enamel paint of the bannister. I realized that this could not have been a reflection from next door because of the lack of windows in my staircase. When I got outside, it was quiet. I asked “hello” and didn’t get an immediate response. The air felt staticy and it felt as though if I touched anything that I’d receive a shock. When I peered through the fence I saw ten black spheres; Four on top, three below, then two and one, like an inverted triangle. It rose slightly, then the top left sphere broke away from the others and came towards me. At first I panicked and could not move. As I looked into this sphere, it had an iridescence to it that made me feel calm when I looked at it. I do not remember going back to my room, I just remember being there. I noticed the clock said 1:45am. I also noticed some dried crusty blood around my right nostril. The room still had those two strange colors moving all around the surfaces of the walls and ceiling. Not understanding what was happening, I jumped into bed and buried my face in the pillows. I woke the next morning with the distinct feeling that this was real and not a dream. There were still bits of dried blood in my nostril and for a few days after, the area just to the side of my nostril still hurt. Deep under the skin like when a pimple is coming up. Then it went away. I know this happened to me, everything inside me says it was real. I have no way of explaining it and I have no real way of filing it away in my mind like you would with a normal experience.

Looking at such cases as we have here, it would seem that UFO abductions are a phenomenon far from just those people wandering about on the fringes of civilization. It seems that this is something that can happen to anyone at any time, which makes it all even creepier and more unsettling than it already is. What are we to make of such reports? Are these truly visitations from creatures from beyond our world and understanding, or is there something more to it all? Whatever one may think, these certainly remain up there with some of the stranger UFO abduction cases there are, and are certainly worthy of further discussion.