By: DAVID RICE
Re: A little Help From Space

   SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- Talk about foreign aid!

   Lured by three self-styled mediums, about 1,500 people gathered
at an airfield in northern Bulgaria on Monday, awaiting the arrival
of eight space ships piloted by extraterrestrials, police Maj.
Stoyan Marinov said.

   Among other things, state TV reported, the mediums promised that
the aliens would help this poor Balkan country pay its $12.9
billion foreign debt.

   The crowd gathered in Shtraklevo, 200 miles northeast of the
capital, Sofia, after three local women -- Radka Trifonova, Zdravka
Krumova and Ekaterina Nikiforova -- declared that space ships from
distant galaxies would land at 11 a.m.

   The mediums, wearing identical dresses they had sewn for the
occasion, waited along with the crowd.

   Nothing came.

   Bulgaria's BTA news agency said that 30 minutes after the
scheduled arrival, the three told the crowd that warplanes flying
in the region were scaring off the aliens.

   After an hour had passed, they said the aliens weren't coming
because President Zhelyu Zhelev had declined to meet with them.

   Police had to usher the women away from the angry crowd,
although Marinov said there was no violence.

   Like elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, despair and
uncertainty over the future has made Bulgaria fertile territory for
would-be seers and psychics. Self-proclaimed mediums who claim to
communicate with extraterrestrials or to treat diseases are widely
popular.

... And then Satan said to God, "But where will YOU find a lawyer?"
* Shy.David@EdenBBS.com
 * Origin: "And furthermore, 'Don't call me brother.'" (1:124/9005)