Since I've been associated with ufology, I've been doing my very damnedest to convince people that those of us who are convinced the government is covering things up and that there are things in the sky that we can't explain and have no idea from where they come are not crazy or misguided or practical jokers trying to put things over on people. I've also made sure that anyone in ufology that I associate with are real, concerned people that simply are interested in finding out what this whole thing is all about.

Most of the time, people that I've encountered will listen with an open mind about what I tell them and I have not found a single person who laughs or tells me that I must be nuts to believe there are intelligently piloted vehicles in our skies that we have no control over. In other words, UFOs are finally being accepted without people giggling or thinking that we're all a bunch of saucer-headed loons, but every now and again, a story or two surfaces that sets the entire UFO community back decades and the UFO UpDates List this week has been blessed with two of them.

First we have a story coming out about an Australian UFO researcher, Mary Rodwell and her book, titled 'Awakening: How Extraterrestrial Contact Can Transform Your Life'.

Ms. Rodwell states that she believes things like Alien Anal Probes and other intrusive measures might actually be beneficial to us. She claims there are hundreds of abductees or experiencers who have been magically cured of all their ailments from being subjected to anal probes by the aliens. She goes on to state that children tell their parents that they learn more during their abduction experiences than they do in school and look forward to being... taken. No gentle listener, I'm not making this up. Go to the UFO UpDates Archives and you can read all about this for yourself.

Now I'm generally an easy going guy and consider myself to be pretty open minded about things but I have a BIG problem when somebody tells me that if I should someday find myself abducted by Aliens that I should just "Bend over and relax... this won't hurt a bit" and I should be thankful because all my human health problems will be healed. Sorry, this kinda falls into the category of "The Check's in the mail" for me!

Anyone that I've spoken with who believe they have suffered being abducted by aliens do not have anything nice to say about the experience. Here it is in black and white, no shades of gray here! People are being taken - that means against their will - nobody asks them if they want to go. They have things done to their bodies that they once again did not ask for and now we have some Australian author who is trying to convince us that these things are good for the people being taken against their will? I just want to know if she is bucking for a position of being an Alien publicist or something. Maybe she is trying to get hired by them to convince us that we should all be carrying 'Welcome My Space Brothers' signs like they did in the Science Fiction movie... 'Independence Day'.

The other little story that brings my blood to a boil is about a group in France that are under Police suicide watch because they believe the world is going to end on October 24th and that their Venusian space-brothers are going to come and whisk them away to a better life. These are the same type of people as Heaven's Gate and the leader of this particular cult is convinced that when he goes to Venus he will become Christ and his twin brother will become the Pope there. Now I don't mind if you want to off yourself... find a nice high building and go for it... but do not attempt to take any poor innocents with you... and quit trying to tie it into UFOs or alien beings. You are not an emissary from Venus or Mars or any of our other planets. You are not here to save us, up until last year, you probably sold shoes at the local discount store.

Yes, we have crazies involved in UFOs trying everything under the sun but we're not all like these people...

But that's just my take on it.....