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just a little rectangular window to look out, which means that nobody can be identified. The key piece of evidence that it’s not a fake is said to be a leader from the beginning of one of the rolls that was—you know, and they’re all encoded, and it was submitted to Kodak, the manufacturer. And Kodak came back and said this was shot in 1947 or some year close to that. And that demonstrates that its not a fake. But, an important proviso is that Kodak was not given a reel that had the autopsy on it. They were just given a snippet, give to Kodak, and then alleged that it came from the beginning of the autopsy film. So, I think that it’s a clever fake, if it’s a fake. But, it’s certainly not compelling abductees, I think the first thing I would do would be to tell them that I’m sure to many of them the pain that is expressed is genuine, that they’re not just making this up. And it’s very important to be compassionate. At the same time, I would stress that hallucinations are a human common place, and not a sign that you are crazy. And that absolutely clear hallucinations have occured to normal people and it has a compelling feeling of reality, but it’s generated in the head. And that being the case, I would ask them to try to be as objective as they can and see if anything like that might, in fact, explain what they said happened to them. And I’d remind them that children, universally, have terrible nightmares, especially around 7 to 11, and wake up from sleep absolutely terrified about a monster, a witch, a goblin, a demon, and why shouldn’t some of us retain that? I mean, there’s no question that those monsters don’t exist and they’re hiding in the closet or under the bed. That’s NOVA: According to Hopkins and others, the main evidence for these stories—in the absence of other evidence—is the similarity of details. In your opinion, what other explanations might account for the similarity and the details of the stories or hallucinations of these abductees? something generated in the mind. Why should it all go away when we grow up? We should retain some of that. And could not something like that be an explana- tion? SAGAN: The culture contaminates movies, television programs, books, haunting pages of aliens, and television interviews with passionate abductees—all communicate to the widest possible community the alien abduction paradigm. So, it’s not as if each abductee has been hermetically sealed from the outside world and has no input about what others are saying. It’s all cross contaminated and it has been for decades. I think that’s the clearest evidence for it not being good evidence—that many people tell the same ntaes: I would try to simply ask them to adopt the scientific method of multiple working hypothesis. Right now, they have only one hypothesis and their minds eee fee ene eee a AI ee are, in many cases, closed to the alterna- tive. I would ask them to do a serious consideration of the alternative, see if it makes sense. NOVA: Can you tell us how you feel if someone came to you with good evidence that there was, in fact, alien life trying to communicate with us? How would that make you feel as a scientist? to story. NOVA: If you could speak directly to the multitudes of people who believe they’re going to bed and perhaps being abducted by aliens, what is it you would like to say to them? SAGAN: If someone came to me with compelling, bona fide evidence that we’re being visited, my reaction would be “Whoopee!” And I’d want to play a role in analyzing the evidence. I would try 44 SAGAN: If I were speaking to a group of