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From: werd@interlog.com [Drew Williamson]
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 17:36:11 -0500 (EST)
Fwd Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 05:10:25 -0500
Subject: Re: Congress in Acapulco

SOURCE: Globe and Mail - p.C3   (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
DATE: December 8, 1997

Alien encounter films hurt UFO experts

BY DAN TROTTA
Reuters News Agency

ACAPULCO - Most of the UFOs and extraterrestrials sighted lately
on earth have not come from far-away galaxies but from Hollywood
studios, raising a serious dilemma for professional UFO
investigators.

   Some experts attending the Second World UFO Congress in
Acapulco this weekend argue that popular science-fiction films
are welcome publicity for their cause.

   But others say the string of hit movies, such as last summer's
Men in Black and Contact, and television shows like The X-Files,
should be scorned for reinforcing stereotypes and giving UFO
debunkers more ammunition.

   "Of course, everything helps, including parodies like Men in
Black," said Jaime Maussan, Mexico's top "ufologist" and
organizer of the congress. "It suggests to the masses that there
really was a group called Men in Black that was connected to
military intelligence," he told Reuters.

   Even Independence Day, the 1996 blockbuster about aliens bent
on invading Earth and enslaving humans, helped to increase the
number of people who say they believe in UFOs and that
governments are covering up proof of their existence, he said.

   The movie took advantage of the core beliefs of many UFO
proponents: that in 1947 an alien spacecraft crashed near
Roswell, N.M., and their bodies were recovered by the U.S.
military and kept in the so-called Area 51 of a nearby base.

   "It speaks to us about Roswell, about Area 51, that there were
aliens recovered and that the President of the United States is
not always informed," Maussan said. "All of this conditions human
beings more and more to believe it is true."

   Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman called Independence Day. "a
hoot" that he enjoyed for its special effects. He said nobody who
went to see the film thought it was a documentary.

   But others at the conference lambasted Independence Day as
practically sacrilegious for exploiting the Roswell story. Budd
Hopkins, a leading investigator of supposed alien abductions of
earthlings, called it "a terrible movie."

   Robert Dean, a former soldier who claims to have seen "Cosmic
Top Secret" NATO documents proving that many UFOs were actually
alien space ships, said he preferred more sober classics such as
Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Day the Earth Stood
Still. "I found Independence Day distracting because it is
typical Hollywood," Dean said.

   Dean said he and other UFO investigators have been working
with producers, directors and writers in Hollywood to "tell the
true story" about extraterrestrial visitors. "The true story is
much more incredible than any horror movie you could make," he
said.