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From: Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk (Stig Agermose)
To: updates@globalserve.net
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 15:43:29 +0200
Subject: The Washington Post: UFO Book Reviews=20
>From the site of The Washington Post. URL:
http://washingtonpost.com:80/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-01/04/041l-010498-idx.html
*******
The Start of Something Big=20
By Elaine Showalter
Sunday, January 4, 1998; Page X01=20
THE THREAT
The Secret Alien Agenda
By David M. Jacobs
Simon & Schuster. 287 pp. $23
FACES OF THE VISITORS
An Illustrated Reference to Alien Contact
By Kevin Randle and Russ Estes
Simon & Schuster. 308 pp. $12
MILLENNIUM, MESSIAHS, AND MAYHEM
Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements
Edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer
Routledge. 334 pp. Paperback, $18.95
UFO CRASH AT ROSWELL
The Genesis of a Modern Myth
By Benson Saler, Charles A. Ziegler, and Charles B. Moore
Smithsonian. 198 pp. $24.95
QUESTIONING THE MILLENNIUM
A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely
Arbitrary Countdown
By Stephen Jay Gould
Harmony. 190 pp. $17.95
IN 1898, in War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells played masterfully on his
culture's fin de siecle anxiety with a story of telepathic,
blood-sucking Martians landing in suburban London to invade a world
they regard as crowded by "inferior animals." In the 1930s, Orson
Welles terrified New Jersey with his radio adaptation of the story. Now
David M. Jacobs, a professor of history and ufology at Temple
University, carries on the tradition, but he doesn't think it's
fiction.=20
In The Threat, Jacobs expounds his view that a race of alien=20
pod-people is about to take over the earth. For decades, he=20
explains, extraterrestrial beings have been carrying out a=20
sustained program of abductions, sperm collection,=20
ova-harvesting, and alien-human cross-breeding. "At the heart of=20
the reproductive agenda," he writes, "is the Breeding Program,"=20
using "extrauterine gestational units" that look like brown paper=20
bags to impregnate menopausal women; "Mindscan" to create sexual=20
arousal in unwilling victims; nasal implants to monitor negative=20
thoughts, and "fetal extraction" (fatal attraction?) to salvage=20
the hybrid if its carrier thinks about abortion. Moreover,=20
there's nothing we can do; already "it may be too late" to stop=20
the threat of "alien integration," and the aliens could be coming=20
as soon as 1999.
Preposterous as Jacobs's theory sounds -- and surely millennial=20
social anxieties of intermarriage, immigration, artificial=20
insemination and genetic engineering have something to do with=20
his vision -- he presents it with serious intent, and undoubtedly=20
many readers will believe him, just as they headed for the hills=20
when Orson Welles broadcast his "War of the Worlds." Indeed,=20
recent surveys show that 25 percent of all Americans believe that=20
aliens have landed on earth. And they're not all the big-eyed=20
Tall Grays we know from "The X-Files" or "Close Encounters." In=20
Faces of the Visitors, Kevin Randle and Russ Estes describe,=20
sketch, and rate the credibility of sightings of over 100=20
different kinds of alien beings, from reptoids and insectoids to=20
humanoids, indistinguishable from you or me, to sexy Brad=20
Pitt-like "Nordics." Whatever their appearance, most of the=20
aliens are sexual predators; there is even a Midwestern support=20
group for those raped by reptoids.
What we don't have, though, are Polaroids. In fact, there are no=20
photographs, videotapes, or material evidence to prove that any=20
of these Oids exist. Some of David Jacobs's patients (he has=20
studied hypnosis and done over 700 "hypnotic interviews" with=20
abductees) have set up video cameras in their bedrooms to film=20
nighttime abductions, but the cameras seem to fall down or break=20
or show the patients getting up at night and turning them off. At=20
a National Press Club luncheon in Washington in October, a=20
reporter asked Gen. John Shalikashvili, then-chairman of the=20
joint chiefs of staff, whether the United States was adequately=20
defended against the threat of invasion by extraterrestrials. "I=20
sleep well at night," the general replied, "without fear that an=20
alien being is going to capture me." The journalists laughed, but=20
neither high-level assurance, absence of evidence, nor=20
disconfirmed prediction seems to halt the fears of abduction,=20
invasion, conspiracy, and apocalypse that swirl around the end of=20
our century.
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