By: David Bloomberg
Re: UFOs on PBS

From: romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu!saul.cis.upenn.edu!pjf (Peter Freyd)

WALL STREET JOURNAL (J) 02/22/96
Copyright (c) 1996 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

By Dorothy Rabinowitz

                     Tuesday, Feb. 27

                    Kidnapped by UFO's?

   "Nova" looks into the fantasies of alleged abductees now finding a
wide audience for their stories of victimization by rampaging aliens.
The film begins, seductively enough, with respectfully reported
introductions to the principals trafficking in these hallucinations --
people like the graphic artist John, whose busy abductors took semen
from his genitals and also, we learn, removed John's eye. Here, too,
is the self-styled therapist Budd Hopkins, who has made a bundle
flogging books of gibberish about alien visitors and their victims. We
meet, not least, Harvard University psychiatrist John Mack, now famous
for his efforts to advance the cause of irrationality in our times.
Dr. Mack, who gives credence to the alien-encounter experience, will
likely not be pleased with this film, which proceeds to demolish the
claims of the various hucksters, charlatans, assorted exhibitioni sts
and garden-variety nitwits immersed in humbug about alien abductors --
and does so with quietly killing authority. On hand to help out are
Carl Sagan, sociologist Richard Ofshe, memory expert Elizabeth Loftus
and psychologist Robert Baker -- dead shots, all.
   -- 8-9 p.m. EST on PBS. PBS air dates and times vary, so check
local listings.