The conference aims to convince people around the world alien abductions are a positive thing, reports Express.co.uk.

Mary Rodwell, researcher at Edgar Mitchell Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial Encounters (FREE), also spoke at the conference after conducting a survey of 3,000 people who claim alien abductions.

She said: “When you hear doctors, nurses, social workers, pilots, celebrities, lawyers, farmers, children, talking about this experience … when they’re all talking about similar things and similar patterns and you hear the emotion and the feeling, all of that is an authenticity you cannot dismiss.”

Kathryn Hand organised the conference and said people have feared speaking out for fear of being called insane.

She said: “We found that by organising this, people have started to feel more comfortable talking about it. We’re giving them a platform to talk about it.”