Paranormal studies dovetail with scientific studies in a few places, but none more strongly than in the field of extraterrestrial life.
Until the 20th Century, speculation about other worlds was just that: speculation. How one considered the possibility was largely just a reflection of the individual’s personality and world view. The religious typically considered other worlds as some division of their spiritual cosmology, while more creative thinkers devised fantastic possibilities based on various unlikely combinations of observed earthly inhabitants.
As scientific knowledge produced the telescope, observations and facts began to tame unfettered speculations, but only increased the interest in extraterrestrials. Indeed, the more we learned that our own solar system was almost completely inhospitable, the more humanity began to exhibit a need to envision what extraterrestrial life would be like. At the same time, the lifelessness of the moon and Mars was proven, dashing the two best hopes of the early space fantasists, the scientific community was actively pursuing sightings, proof, and even…contact.
Meanwhile, those convinced that UFOs were a reality were increasingly condemned by scientific circles, and became more likely to be seen on tabloid talk shows, or parodied in mainstream entertainment and conspiracy theories with increasingly outlandish pseudoscientific claims.
The few sober researchers who pressed on had to rely upon observational evidence, but proponents argue that the field of meteorology (as an example) provides much of the same scientific uncertainty — observational, episodic, non-reproducible events — without garnering anywhere near the same skepticism.
Ultimately, the questions have yet to be satisfactorily resolved in favor of either camp. Several notable thinkers have advanced compelling arguments that extraterrestrial life is not simply a possibility, but a probability (or even, as Carl Sagan has demonstrated, a statistical certainty).
Erik Remm sees an amusing relationship between extraterrestrials and the foreigners in American hospitals here due to benefits they derive from inbound medical tourism.