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112 lines
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Plaintext
112 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE CALL-IN KIND FILE: UFO
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Close Encounters of the Call-In Kind
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09/21/93
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THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
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Life-sized cardboard cutouts of Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr.
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McCoy greet visitors who descend the stairs to the studios of Cable
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Radio Network. Every Sunday night, from the basement of a Sunland
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shopping center, a program called "UFOs Tonight" is beamed up and
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out across America.
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The host is Don Ecker, the self-assured, well-versed research
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director of an obscure journal called UFO magazine. His guest this
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evening was William Paul Cone, a psychologist who has worked with
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30 patients who have told him of abductions by extraterrestrials.
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Debbie from Littlerock was the first caller:
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"What, exactly, is confabulation?"
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Cone did his best to explain. Confabulation, he said, is a
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mental process by which people remember events that did not
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actually occur-the creation of a fictitious memory that has all the
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power of fact.
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"To them," Cone said, "it's reality."
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But Debbie from Littlerock wasn't quite satisfied. Why is it,
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she wanted to know, that some memories "feel like they come from
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the back of my head, and some are on the inside of my eyelids?"
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Doctor, she pleaded, isn't there some way to distinguish fact
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from confabulation?
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*
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Now, there's a question for our time: What is fact and what is
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fantasy? Cone, of course, told Debbie that the answer is, generally
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speaking, no. You usually can't tell, not unless there's hard
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evidence to demonstrate otherwise.
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Confabulation, obviously, can be a valuable tool for a newspaper
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columnist, but let me assure you that I'm not haunted or otherwise
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affected by memories of abductions by ETs. And although it may be
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boring to say so, my assumption is all the aircraft I've seen were
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produced by Earthling technology.
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Most of us, I suspect, are agnostics on this subject: skeptical,
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but open to the possibilities.
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But if you believe Don Ecker, the believers are numerous. Radio
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ratings may be a special form of confabulation, but Ecker's been
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told he has more than 1.5 million listeners every Sunday night.
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Unlike some other "UFOlogists" who seem willing to believe just
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about every assertion made in the name of ETs, Ecker presents
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himself as a skeptical believer. He's an ex-Green Beret and ex-cop
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who suggests that "the ET hypothesis does seem to be viable."
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Ecker interprets a national poll as suggesting that at least 5
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million Americans believe they have encountered extraterrestrials.
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Cone, the psychologist, suggested that the poll's findings were
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more ambiguous.
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On "UFOs Tonight," alien abduction is a typical subject. So are
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suggestions that pop culture like "Star Trek" and "Close Encounters
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of the Third Kind" are part of a grand scheme to gradually
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introduce us to the truth about alien visitors. So are allegations
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of government cover-ups of supposed crashes of alien spacecraft.
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The commercial breaks are filled with ads for UFO videos, UFO
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magazines and newsletters and tapes of previous "UFO Tonight"
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broadcasts.
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With all his talk about confabulation, Cone might have seemed a
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hostile guest. He also warned of UFOlogists who may "CONTAMINATE"
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people's memories by suggesting that strange memories may be
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explained as alien abduction.
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But to the contrary, Cone assured listeners that his patients
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and other people he has interviewed have persuaded him that there
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is something legitimate to their claims of ET encounters. "I'm
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absolutely convinced that there's some basis to the phenomenon. . .
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. What it is, I can't say."
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Off the air, Cone said that growing interest in extraterrestrials
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"has been good for business." Many patients, he said, had avoided
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telling other therapists of their memories for fear that they would
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be thought crazy.
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The phone wasn't ringing much. Ecker's audience seemed more
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interested in outer space than the space within our skulls. The
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second caller was, again, Debbie from Littlerock, this time asking
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about what to tell children who say they have been abducted by
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aliens.
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Don't get overly excited about it, Cone said. Don't reinforce
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the trauma. People who believe they've been abducted by ETs, the
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psychologist advised, need to keep this in perspective. Don't let
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it ruin your lives.
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*
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Only when Ecker exhorted his listeners to call, with 30 minutes
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left in the show, did his phone console finally light up like a
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spaceship.
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There was Don from Glendale, Ann from Redondo Beach, Herb from
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Burbank, Vince from Tucson, Susan from Sherman Oaks, Mike from El
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Monte. . . .
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Alan from Ventura told Ecker he'd just stumbled across the show
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for the first time.
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"Why would the government cover up something as grandiose as
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this?" he asked.
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The UFOlogist advanced a theory: "What makes the planet go round
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and round?"
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"Gravitational forces," Alan suggested.
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Ecker chuckled. The answer, he said, is oil.
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Now just suppose that the aliens brought us new, clean
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technologies and energy sources that would render the oil giants
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and the car manufacturers obsolete? Now wouldn't the government
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want to cover up something like that?
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At least I think that's what Ecker said.
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I hope I'm not confabulating. It's on tape.
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*********************************************************************
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* -------->>> THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo <<<------- *
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********************************************************************* |