Date:   Tue May 04 1993  10:35:00
From:   Sheppard Gordon
To:     All
Subj:   HE HAS THE UFO
Attr:   
UFO                            -------------------------------

IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY, HE HAS THE UFO
(05/03/93) Sacramento Bee
 
It is twilight and Sean David Morton is driving 90 mph through
the Nevada desert, headed for a dimension where unearthly flashes
appear in the sky and the lone local bar serves a cocktail called
Beam Me Up, Scotty.
He is hurtling toward a sector where he says extraterrestrials
prowl Earth, surgically mutilating cows, conspiring with the U.S.
military and watching late-night TV.
He is entering the terrifying Area 51.
The Establishment says Area 51 is a testing site for secret
airplanes near Nellis Air Force Base. But Morton insists that it's
a U.S.-alien cooperative where flying saucers are tested and
grotesque genetic experiments take place.
"NASA is a fake. The real stuff is out here," he says.
In the back of his rented van are seven passengers, a few of
them alarmed by the warp speed at which Morton is driving. Each has
paid $99 to see the flying saucers that Morton says spin through
the desert at night.
The fee also entitles them to an earful of the self-proclaimed
prophet's arcane tidbits about space travel and government
coverups, which he spews forth with a lunar gleam in his eye and a
touch of sweat beneath his fedora.
Casually - in a tone you'd use to explain that your Aunt Mavis
is from Wisconsin - he explains that Area 51's aliens are probably
from Krondac, a planet 800 light-years away.
"They're actually bluish-gray and a little bigger than most
people think. They're 3 to 4 feet tall."
Morton admits he has never actually seen any aliens in the
flesh, but "sources" tell him that the little men with the smooth
heads and the wrap-around eyes are living at Area 51.
His fellow travelers are three students of the paranormal from
Mexico City: one guy with a video camera who sells material to the
Fox Network series Sightings, one inscrutable Brazilian and a
hairdresser from West Hollywood, Calif.
Morton, 34, makes his living as a psychic, a healer, a
predictor of earthquakes and a screenwriter. He just finished a
book of prophecy for the next 30 years. He also worked on TV shows
about Area 51 for the NBC series Unsolved Mysteries and for Geraldo
Rivera's Now It Can Be Told.
"Hidden here is the technology to end all wars, to end hunger,
to provide an endless supply of energy," he said. "I'm outraged
that they're not showing it to the rest of the world."
Morton says he was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family
but became a New Age thinker after a spiritual quest that took him
from Texas to Tibet.
"My mother thinks I'm nuts," he said. "She has a publishing
company, and she won't even publish my book."
Miles later, the UFO van pulls into Ash Springs, Nev.,
population 11, for supplies. Store owner Goodie Goodman immediately
recognizes Morton. He bags groceries and muses.
"I am not a believer because I have not seen anything, but I
know people who have," he said.
More and more desert. More and more darkness. One of the
Mexicans nods off. Suddenly, Morton swings the van off the road,
kills the headlights and leaps onto the road, screaming,
"Look-look-look! Over there, over there! What the hell's that? Oh!
It's gone!"
The fellow travelers run down the road behind him.
There are lights all over the sky. Some look like helicopters,
some like flares, some like F-16s. Two huge planes, possibly B-1s,
swoop close overhead in the dark, barely making a sound. And
something else seems to hopscotch across the sky, leaving an orange
flash at each stop.
"You just saw tiny space jumps," Morton declared.
But skeptics say Morton's the one doing the jumping - right off
the deep end.
"For nearly 25 years, my specialty has been the field of UFOs,
as a hobby," said Philip Klass, a senior editor at Aviation Week &
Space Technology for 34 years and a specialist in aviation
electronics. "In all that time, I've yet to find a UFO case to
suggest we have any alien spacecraft in our  skies. If there were
any credible evidence, it would not be a mystery anymore. I think
there's no possibility of that being true."
Area 51 is used for testing new covert airplanes, Klass said,
and for staging war games and testing electronic jamming equipment.
He said the "skipping" orange lights are most likely airplanes
testing decoy flares that fool heat-seeking ground missiles.
Barry Karr, executive director of Skeptical Inquirer magazine,
said con artists are promoting Area 51 to make easy money giving
tours and lectures.
"There are about four or five guys running around the country,
and they all have a different shtick about Area 51," Karr said.
The rest of the night at Area 51 was less dramatic. No
abductions, no mutilations, no close encounters.
As midnight neared, the van pulled up at the only bar for 85
miles, a converted trailer. The sign outside says, "Earthlings
Welcome."
"It's not just kooks and idiots that come out here. These
people are genuinely interested," said proprietor Joe Travis,
standing behind the bar that serves the Beam Me Up, Scotty drink
(Jim Beam, 7-Up and a dash of scotch). "We had a man in here last
night from another planet. He didn't tell me, but I knew."

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 * Origin: The Dorsai Diplomatic Mission  (1:278/706)