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There was a great article in the New Yorker about police interrogation techniques and how they can influence people to confess to crimes (and the studies that explain why people would falsely confess).

[1]http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-interview-7

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This is probably the most important point I remember from "The Demon-Haunted World", in which Carl Sagan repeatedly demonstrates that human memory is completely unreliable, and that false memories can even be accidentally created by a therapist. People who say they've been abducted by aliens usually aren't lying; they genuinely believe it.

The book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Tavris and Aronson delves into this in great detail. Well worth a read.

There's also this article: [The Reykjavik Confessions – The mystery of why six people admitted roles in two murders - when they couldn't remember anything about the crimes.](http://www.bbc.com/news/special/2014/newsspec_7617/index.htm...) It gives a great inside how the investigation may have affected the suspects.

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