Although abduction and other UFO-related reports are usually made by adults, sometimes young children report similar experiences.[10] These child-reports often feature very specific details in common with reports of abduction made by adults, including the circumstances, narrative, entities and aftermaths of the alleged occurrences.[10] often these young abductees have family members who have reported having abduction experiences.[10] Family involvement in the military, or a residence near a military base is also common amongst child abduction claimants.[10]

Deborah Truncale, a pro-abduction researcher believes that the reports made by children should be taken similarly seriously to those made by adults.[10] She notes several characteristic behaviors of children fictionalizing stories, such as pausing to think, attempting to anticipate the reaction of the listener, or trying to fake convincing eye contact.[10] Truncale sees child abduction claimants as lacking these mannerisms, instead, she says, they can be described as "generally more animated [than children making up stories] and speak[ing] quickly, [they recall] an account without the behavior that involves...story telling."[10]

Some pro-abduction researchers feel that children do not include the image of the Grey-type alien as part of their "image bank," and consequently their reports are not likely derived from cultural depictions of UFO related phenomena.[5] Budd Hopkins once investigated "several mask and novelty stores" for a commercially produced grey alien costume for children, but could not.[5] He feels that this supports the hypothesis that children are not familiar with "greys."[5] John Carpenter also believes that young children are not "contaminated" with cultural images of greys.[5] He reports that a fellow investigator who is a school teacher requested her children to draw an alien, and that none of them drew a Grey-like being.[5]

Children seem to react differently to their alleged abduction experiences than adult claimants.[10] Many alleged adult experiencers report doubting their sanity or the veracity of what they believed happened to them.[10] Children, by contrast, never seem to doubt that their experiences happened to them.[10] For an adult, an abduction experience can challenge much of what they believe about the world.[10] Children however, by virtue of being in a formative stage of development, more readily assimilate the experience into their developing worldview.[10]

Many repeat-abductees report that, as children from the ages of 2-6, they would be visited by balls of light that would enter their room at night.[11] These balls would seem to play games with children and fly around the room.[11] Some have interpreted them as being a way for the alleged abductees to develop their psychic abilities the way a physical ball helps develop coordination and athletic abilities.[11] As such these intangible orbs have been dubbed "psychic toys." Although these phantasms are alleged to have appeared regularly, no corroborating sightings from members of the abductees' families or others that may have been expected to see them have been reported.[11]