145 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
145 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: TOURISTS PAY $99 EACH, HOPING FOR CLOSE ENCOUNTER IN NEVADA DESERT
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FILE: UFO3085
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The Following taken from THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR in Tucson, AZ on
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4-25-93. This may be "old news" to most of you, but I will provide
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it for those interested...
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AREA 51:
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TOURISTS PAY $99 EACH, HOPING FOR CLOSE ENCOUNTER IN NEVADA DESERT
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By Carol Masciola
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Orange County Register
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It is twilight and Sean David Morton is driving 90 mph through the
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Nevada
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desert, headed for a dimension where unearthly flashes appear in the sky and
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the lone local bar serves alien-burgers and a cocktail called the Beam Me Up,
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Scotty.
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He is hurtling toward a sector where he says extraterrestrials prowl the
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Earth, surgically mutilating cows, conspiring with the U.S. military and
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watching late-night TV.
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He is entering the terrifying Area 51.
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The Establishment says Area 51 is a testing site for secret airplanes
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near Nellis Air Force Base. But Morton insists that it's a U.S.-alien
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cooperative where flying saucers are tested and grotesque genetic experiments
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take place.
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"NASA is a fake. The real stuff is out here," he says.
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**ALIENS' ORIGINS**
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In the back of his rented van are seven wide-eyed passengers, a few of
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them alarmed by the warp speed at which Morton is driving. Each has paid $99
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to see the flying saucers that Morton says spin through the desert at night.
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The fee also entitles them to an earful of the self-proclaimed prophet's
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arcane tidbits about space travel and government cover-ups, which he spews
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forth with a lunar gleam in his eye and a touch of sweat beneath his fedora.
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Casually - in a tone you'd use to explain that your Aunt Mavis is from
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Wisconsin - he explains that Area 51's aliens are probably from Krondac, a
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planet 800 light-years away.
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"They're actually bluish-gray and a little bigger than most people
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think.
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They're 3 to 4 feet tall."
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Morton admits he's never actually seen any aliens in the flesh, but
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"sources" tell him they're living at Area 51 - those little men with the
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smooth heads and the wraparound eyes.
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**TV EXPERIENCE**
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His fellow travelers are three students of the paranormal from Mexico
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City, one guy with a video camera who sells material to the Fox Network
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series
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"Sightings," one inscrutable Brazilian, and a hairdresser from West
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Hollywood,
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Calif.
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Morton, 34, makes his living as a psychic, a healer, a predictor of
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earthquakes and a screen-writer. He just finished a book of prophecy for
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the next 30 years. He also worked on TV shows about Area 51 for the NBC
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series
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"Unsolved Mysteries" and for Geraldo Rivera's "Now It Can Be Told."
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"Hidden here is the technology to end all wars, to end hunger, to
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provide
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an endless supply of energy," he said. "I'm outraged that they're not
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showing
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it to the rest of the world."
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Morton says he was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family "of the
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most rabid variety" but became a New Age thinker after a spiritual quest
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that took him from Texas to Tibet and various points in between.
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**LIGHTS IN THE SKY**
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"My mother thinks I'm nuts. She thinks I'm the Antichrist," he said.
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"She has a publishing company, and she won't even publish my book."
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Miles later, the UFO van pulls into Ash Springs, Nev., population 11,
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for
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supplies. Store owner Goodie Goodman immediately recognizes Morton. He bags
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groceries and muses "I am not a believer, because I have not seen anything;
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but I know people who have," he says.
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"You have to understand where we are in relation to Area 51."
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More and more desert. More and more darkness. One of the Mexicans nods
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off. Suddenly, Morton swings the van off the road, kills the headlights and
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leaps onto the road, screaming, "Look, look, look! Over there, over there!
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What the hell's that? Oh! It's gone!" The fellow travelers run down the berm
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behind him. There are lights all over the sky. Some look like helicopters,
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some like flares, some like F-16s.
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Two huge planes, possibly B-1's, swoop close overhead in the dark,
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barely making a sound. And something else seems to hopscotch across the sky,
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leaving an orange flash at each stop.
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**TESTING GROUND**
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"You just saw tiny space jumps, " Morton declares.
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But skeptics say Morton's the one doing the jumping - right off the deep
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end.
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"For nearly 25 years, my specialty has been the field of UFOs, as a
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hobby," said Philip J. Klass, a senior editor at Aviation Week & Space
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Technology for 34 years and a specialist in aviation electronics. "In all
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that
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time, I've yet to find a 'UFO case' to suggest we have any alien spacecraft
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in our skies. If there were any credible evidence, it would not be a mystery
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anymore. I think there's no possibility of that being true."
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Area 51 is used for testing new covert airplanes, Klass said, and for
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staging war games and testing electronic jamming equipment.
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He said the "skipping" orange lights are most likely airplanes testing
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decoy flares that fool heat-seeking ground missiles.
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Barry Karr, executive director of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, said con
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artists are promoting Area 51 to make easy money by giving tours and
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lectures.
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**INCENTIVE TO DECEIVE**
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"There are about four or five guys running around the country, and they
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all have a different shtick about Area 51," Karr said.
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Klass suggested that pranksters might be enhancing the military's aerial
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show with their own bogus UFOs and that local businesses might be
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perpetuating
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the myth to bring tourists to an otherwise uninviting corner of the desert.
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"If I were the owner of a bar or restaurant or filling station in that
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desolate area, I would love to have something to attract tourists. If that
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meant launching weather balloons outfitted with flares or buying
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radio-controlled airplanes and outfitting that with a special light, I would
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be very tempted to do something like that."
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As midnight neared, the van pulled up at the only bar for 85 miles - the
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Little A'le'inn, a converted trailer. The signs outside read, "Earthlings
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Welcome" and "Budweiser."
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**GENUINE INTEREST**
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"It's not just kooks and idiots that come out here. These people are
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genuinely interested," said proprietor Joe Travis, standing behind the bar.
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Within his reach were dozens of liquor bottles; his wife, Pat; a
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12-gauge
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pump shotgun; and an assortment of.357 Magnums. "We had a man in here last
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night from another planet. He didn't tell me, but I knew."
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Travis is serious. He insists that humanoid aliens patronize his tavern,
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indulging in the Alien Burgers and the Beam Me Up, Scotty (Jim Beam, 7-Up and
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a dash of scotch).
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*********************************************************************
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* -------->>> THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo <<<------- *
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