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From: Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk (Stig Agermose)
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 04:37:28 +0100
Fwd Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 05:12:41 -0500
Subject: Author: NASA Profits By High Interest In UFOs

>From The Huntsville Times (Alabama). URL:

http://groupmaster.al.com/city/huntsville/List.asp?Section=3D1&ID=3D25038

*******


March=BF20, 1998    Author: Blame NASA for high interest in UFOs


By MARTIN BURKEY
Times Aerospace/Science Writer
3/20/98

NASA doesn't advertise flying saucers as a space program spinoff,
but the agency gets at least a share of the credit, the author of
a book about UFOs said Thursday.

"The exploration of space makes reverse exploration seem
reasonable," said Dr. Benson Saylor, professor of anthropology at
Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Saylor, author of "UFO Crash at Roswell, The Genesis of a Modern
Myth", talked about the UFO "subcommunity" during a public
lecture at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Asked why UFOs have become so popular in the face of
contradictory, ambiguous or nonexistent evidence, Saylor
suggested more people are searching for "enhancement, wonder,
spirituality."

It also resonates strongly with recurring mythology, specifically
the "hoarded object myth" in which some entity controls crucial
resources and refuses to give it to humanity, Saylor said. In
Greek mythology, the gods controlled fire until Prometheus stole
fire and gave it to mortals. India has a similar myth about
water, he said.

"In Roswell, the monster is the U.S. government, which controls
the knowledge that we are not alone," said Saylor, who noted that
he does not believe in UFOs.

Saylor said UFOs are used for "individual empowerment," a way for
people to make themselves popular.

UFOs also are a vehicle for anti-government fears in the wake of
Watergate and the Vietnam War, Saylor said. "Shaken confidence in
government makes it seem more plausible. The government cant win
this case."

The appeal of UFOs is also driven by docu-dramas and other media
that make them seem more real, he added.

Polls indicate half of adults in the United States believe UFOs
are real and there is intelligent life in the universe, Saylor
said. Another 27 percent maintain alien ships have landed and
have contacted humans.

Unlike true stories, like Watergate, which gradually unfolded
around a handful of facts that didnt change, the Roswell incident
and other UFO stories change or contradict themselves, Saylor
said.

"Its not what you find in a journalistic expose," he said. "Its
what you find in myths."

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