The movie has basis in some amount of fact, but nothing that’s in the actual movie:

In real life, there was a string of disappearances in the small town on the west coast of Alaska, not far from the Bering Strait. In 2005, the FBI was brought in to investigate. The victims were largely native men traveling to the town from smaller villages, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

The FBI looked into about 20 cases, finding alcohol and frigid temperatures to be causes. Nine bodies were never found.

Budd Hopkins knows a lot more about this than I do, so here’s his review:

Underlying all of this fictional, never before reported malarky, the film’s pseudo-documentary style strains to convince us that everything depicted is “supported by actual case material.”   Well, after thirty-three years of working with hundreds upon hundreds people reporting UFO abduction experiences, I can say, first, that in no case has anyone ever reported the permanent disappearance of a friend, a family member or anyone even vaguely connected with my huge pool of subjects.  The sort of final, “taken-by-the-aliens disappearance” that the film suggests simply doesn’t happen – though, unfortunately, this tragic turn in the screenplay could disturb many uninformed people in a real-world audience.

Second, the hyper-emotional reactions mimed by the actors are almost non-existent in competently conducted hypnosis sessions.  I’ve observed actual screams in perhaps six or seven of the nearly two thousand hypnosis sessions I’ve been present for, or carried out myself, over three decades, and have never seen the kind of mindless terror, vomiting and crashing about  that the movie graphically, and shamelessly, forces upon the audience.

…has got an agenda of his own.  John Mack’s theories about space brothers guiding us into the new age millenium may err on the polar opposite side of the debate:

It doesn’t seem likely that the alien story is all bad or all good.  It may not even be a case of anything alien at all, but possibly a literal manifestation of our psyches.  When you add hypnosis into the mix, in which the hypnotist’s worldview can be imprinted on the subject – even telepathically without any aural cues – it makes the whole enterprise fairly dubious, even if it’s totally fascinating.  Like the rest of the UFO debate, something is happening, and until we know what that something is, we should never cast it aside.

I was disappointed as well to see Budd Hopkins cite David Jacobs work as credible in his recent memoir Art, Life, and UFOs.  Really, an incredible read, one of my favorite UFO books, along with Jacques Vallee’s journals, because Hopkins is so erudite and courageous about covering this issue knowing he could (and did) damage his reputation.  A good primer on Abstract Expressionism as well.  I knew little about his art and mostly knew his UFO research – but he’s obviously the real thing in every way.  I want a Budd Hopkins piece on my wall:

The main issue may be that Budd Hopkins is an authentically decent guy and I’m…not.  That is, he sees people as basically decent so ripping people from their bedrooms and studying them is totally invasive.  Me, I see humans as basically primitive and that possibly we’re being studied in the same manner we study mice.  And I’ve been involved in animal rights activism – I don’t (generally, sometimes) eat meat and much animal testing is cruel and unnecessary.  But I am not so blind that I cannot see that medical research has some real value for humanity’s future health.  Alien research could fall under the same category – we’re too primitive to understand why it’s being done, but it’s being done for a purpose that is not as nefarious as the research itself.

The most compelling stuff in Budd Hopkins’ research is when there’s physical evidence by those who don’t claim to be abducted – so there are witnesses to “lights” at the same time someone claims to be abducted.  Other cases of abduction by several different people in which they all tell a similar story are eerie – but again this could be a case of the hypnotist imprinting not only his view of the subject, but also what he’d learned from previous subjects about the same encounter.

It’s interesting that John Mack and David Jacobs both find subjects that confirm their theories about the abduction experience – though John Mack does report on the scarier, more-invasive encounters, which is why to me he’s more credible. Basically, you have one researcher citing that hybrids are here to help usher us into the Age of Aquarius, and one who thinks hybrids are here to enslave us.

The latter has gotten into some trouble.  Emma Woods, one of Dr. David Jacobs’ subjects, has this to say on her site:

1) I was Dr. Jacobs’ research subject between 2004 through 2007, and he investigated my anomalous experiences using hypnosis.

2) During that time, Dr. Jacobs told me that he was in danger from “hybrids/aliens” because of his “alien abduction” research, and in my opinion, his behavior became quite bizarre and paranoid.

3) Dr. Jacobs also believed that those “hybrids/aliens” could read my mind (and the minds of other abductees) because it is well documented that the communication that abductees remember having with “aliens” (whatever the actual cause of the phenomenon is), is primarily telepathic.

4) Consequently, while Dr. Jacobs had me under hypnosis, he planted suggestions in my mind that I had Multiple Personality Disorder. He did this ostensibly to try to fool the “hybrids/aliens”, not because he really believed that I had MPD.

5) Dr. Jacobs ostensibly believed that the “hybrids/aliens” would read my mind, see that he had a new theory ‘that everyone telling abduction stories was actually suffering from MPD’, and that the “hybrids/aliens” would therefore loose interest in him.

6) Dr. Jacobs told me that he actually believed in “alien abduction”. He said that he believed that his life was in danger from the “hybrids/aliens” because he knew that they had a “secret” program to infiltrate Earth by using “hybrids” to blend into human society.

7) Dr. Jacobs was ostensibly trying to use my mind as a shield to protect himself from “hybrids/aliens”, whom he said he believed would use mind control on him, or even possibly kill him, to stop his “alien abduction” research.

Read on…All in all, not that surprising.  But it’s really damaging to the future of abduction research.  And it can give rise to sites like Alien Abductions Incorporated:

When you choose an AAI Abduction Experience our doctors, hypnotists, and memory implant technicians work with you in pre-abduction orientation sessions to customize one of our hundreds of stock abductions to suit your personal taste. You can even pick one of our fetishist’s specials—interspecies breeding, medical experimentation—it’s all up to you. Whether you select a solo abduction or one of our special Group Abduction packages (great for corporate retreats, school groups, and theme parties), AAI gives you the best abduction for the lowest price.

Funny, but ouch.