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Kidnapped by UFOs? [Nova, WGBH Television, 1996] NOVA: Phil, you’ve been following the so-called alien abduction movement very closely, perhaps more closely than anyone. Tell us how long you’ve been studying this, and how much evidence you have found to date, that supports the contentions of people like John Mack and Budd Hopkins? abducted, to report it to the FBI—our national law enforcement agency responsible for kidnapping. Ihave gone into my lifetime savings, and offer to pay 10 thousand dollars to any person who believes they’ve been abducted, to report it to the FBI. Let the FBI investigate it. If the FBI comes back and says, ‘We believe this person’s story,’ I will then go into my life savings and present this check for 10 thousand dollars to that person. And thereby, we will have alerted our federal government. We can enlist the defenses of this agency KLASS: . . . I've been interested in and investigating and following claims of UFO abductions for almost 30 years. NOVA: In all that time, how much hard evidence have you found? nation to defend our people. And if this is simply a cult where people are needlessly being manipulated, and alien abductions are fantasy, then we can free the public from worrying about a _ non-existent threat. So I risk my life savings for the well-being of those who claim they have been abducted. If they have, then lets defend and protect them. And if this is simply fantasy, then lets dispel it, let’s push it off our plate of things to worry about. KLASS: . . . In nearly 30 years of search- ing, investigating famous cases, I have yet to find one that cannot be explained in down-to-earth prosaic terms. Therefore, if somebody says to me, “I have been abducted by strange looking creatures that do these dreadful things to me,” I’m quite confident that they could not possibly be extraterrestrials. Maybe they’re mischievous Irish leprechauns; maybe they’re the mischievous elves of Santa Claus; maybe they are agents of the devil—now I don’t believe in any of these. But I have not spent 30 years investigat- ing whether the leprechauns exist. But I am quite confident that there is no scientific credible evidence to show that we've had alien visitors, let alone that they’re doing these dreadful things. that NOVA: Budd Hopkins and alien investi- gators claim there’s a lot of hard physical evidence from these experiences. How compelling do you find that evidence? KLASS: The evidence, first off, is not universal and it is not compelling. Budd Hopkins likes to claim that anyone with a scar on their body, that they cannot remember how they got it—maybe in their childhood—that that scar was caused by aliens. Nonsense. When I give UFO lectures, I ask people in the audience: How many of you have a scar on your body somewhere? And nearly every hand goes up. And then when I ask: Can you remember how you got the scar? Almost no hands go up. NOVA: Phil, tell us about “The Phil Klass Ten Thousand Dollar Challenge,” please? KLASS: If extraterrestrials are abducting earthlings, as is claimed, then it is time to alert the federal government to defend us, for our government to join with other governments to defend this planet. To encourage those who claim to have been 46 Philip J. Klass