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177 bearing no similarity to anything created by any known gov- ernment. The realization that these UFOs were quite possibly alien vehicles gradually made its way into the public consciousness despite the best efforts of government disinformation special- ists, the self-appointed protectors of scientific conservatism, and the damage to credibility caused by UFO reports in the supermarket tabloid newspapers and from the lunatic fringe of the private UFO community. Lacking any other explanation for the most baffling UFO reports, more and more people as- sumed they were alien in origin, even though they knew of no direct evidence of this. As for the aliens' motives, they were a lot harder to under- stand. Most people figured they were exploring Earth and its people for reasons of scientific curiosity, because that is what we plan to do when we get to other planets. Their continued presence in large numbers for at least several decades suggests, however, that if they are explorers, they may be slow learners, or we may be particularly hard to figure out (which would give Man at least a temporary boost in self-esteem). But for most of the modern era of UFOs, no other motivation on the part of the UFO operators was given serious consideration. Until 1981, when New York author Budd Hopkins began to take a close look at the strangest of all the parts of the UFO mystery: so-called alien abductions. These short-term kidnap- pings of people by apparent aliens, most of which involve puz- zling procedures resembling medical examinations, first became public in the mid-1960s with the publication of The Interrupted Journey by John Fuller. He described the extraordi- nary experiences of Barney and Betty Hill, whose return from an otherwise normal vacation included a side trip into history. In the following decade, a few similar stories came to light, but generally remained within the UFO community. Hopkins' Missing Time and Intruders sold widely, and firmly established alien abductions as a subject for talk shows and their vast TV audiences. The books described dozens of "abduction" reports that Hopkins had investigated and brought IMPLICATIONS