Of course this is possible if you are an advocate of hypnosis as a reliable tool. The trouble with eyewitness testimony is once the event or attack has taken place and he/she is asked to recall what happened, people remember certain parts of the event, not all, but the brain naturally tries to fill in these blanks. It’s the gap of the Gods scenario. The problem is over time, the person believes so much in these inventions, they actually believe them as fact, just as much as the real events. In other words they are reinforced over time. The problem with hypnosis is it recalls memories, no matter how false they are, it does not necessarily recall fact. When people recall being abducted by aliens, this proves the fact. They are recalling memories or dreams they have utterly convinced themselves are real. Clearly and obviously they are delusional, yet hypnosis still recalls this utter nonsense, so in short, as a reliable tool for crimes nearly half a century old, I’m afraid its unlikely to generate any useful information we can rely on as fact.

what uk said. i’ve never seen a reliable study showing that hypnosis helps anyone remember anything better than simply sitting in a quiet room and recalling an event. every time we remember something we remember the memory, not the event. if you suggest hard enough that someone can remember "more", they certainly will, it’ll just be remembering things that didn’t happen. just my 2 cents.

I think there are some documented cases of hypnosis (there are obviously various forms and methods around) being used by psychologists to unearth hidden (and real) memories of events the patient has repressed – but that is different from what we’re talking about here.

As far as uncovering forgotten (not repressed) details goes, I completely agree with the comments above.

People who truly believe they’ve been kidnapped by aliens will remember just that – in more vivid detail, probably – if they’re put under hypnosis. Which doesn’t mean they were kidnapped by aliens – just that they believe it.

In theory (this just struck me now and is completely off topic), I suppose a psychologist could use hypnosis to unearth real memories lodged in a patient who believes he or she was kidnapped by aliens: That is, memories of how they at some point managed to convince themselves that this had taken place, perhaps as some form of defense mechanism or sublimation, etc.

i am all for that..its a tool so why not use it..problem as i see it is who would really want to relive that event..mageau is iffy at best (or worse) and i do not see hartnell going along..K johns would have been my pick but like others is gone forever..good idea really but it has it limitations like most things Z

I watched a TV programme a few nights ago about witness recollection. It was enlightening and slightly disheartening at the same time. Test subjects were shown CCTV footage of a staged robbery and immediately asked to recall specifics via a set of questions. The variations in replies and recall ability were quite pronounced. I think this gives us and idea of the variables we are dealing with when it comes to witness memories, what they choose to notice at the time and what they interpret, even in real time.

That’s probably why hypnosis was ever considered as a tool to assist in cases but as I think other’s have touched on it probably served more to highlight the unpredictability of recall and how our brains choose to interpret memories rather than (consistently) extracting real and accurate information from that melee.

Maybe some show has tested the hypnosis variable?

I have seen the other side too though.

Recently I watched an episode of "Forensic Files". A man was starting multiple fires which ended up killing several people. A lady had met a man she found curious. She saw his car, but could not remember his license plate number. After hypnosis, she recalled the first three letters. When they found out who the guy was, his license plate number had the same first three letters as the lady mentioned.

It can work, it just depends on the answers they would seek. At this point though, I think it would be useless unfortunately. I don’t think it would hurt anything…just probably wouldn’t help.

The license plate thing I can see working: There would be very little, presumably, to interfere in such a case with the witness’ actual, real memory of the thing – it’s just a question of unearthing the raw data, so to speak.

If the same witness had read a dozen books filled with all sorts of speculation about the license plate, however…well, there you go.

We don’t know precisely how memory “works” or what it actually…is. It’s amazing what people can suddenly recall, things which were registered and stored at some point – there are numerous examples of people who suddenly, typically in old age, begin recalling fragments of a language they knew when they were children (but have seemingly completely forgotten since).