A university researcher believes the brain can be tricked into making people remember events which never happened to them.
Dr Dan Wright, a lecturer and researcher in psychology at the University of Sussex, is studying how false memories can be implanted into the brain.
The concept could have drastic consequences for witnesses in court cases whose memory is relied upon for evidence.
Dr Wright has studied people who believed they had been abducted by aliens and some who thought they had been a high priestess in a satanic cult.
Researchers have been working on the idea people can be implanted with entirely false memories or have recollections of genuine events distorted.
Dr Wright has been interested in memory since he did a PhD at the end of the Eighties and says it is possible to make people believe something that never actually happened to them, within reason.
He said: "A lot of research relates to how people's memories are not perfect and make errors.
"The memories that are important are those with legal consequence such as child sexual abuse, satanic abuse or if things happened to you such as being abducted by aliens."
Dr Wright has been looking at what makes some people more susceptible to false memories than others.
On average, it seems a third of those subjected to misinformation wholly or partially adopt a false memory.
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