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186 their honored places in society as well. They would be as outdated as those who once made arrowheads by chipping flint. Also left without motivation would be hundreds of thou- sands of young people in many countries who had been in- spired to study harder in hopes of one day joining their national space programs and perhaps doing important things for hu- manity. The most technologically advanced cultures on Earth could shrink back toward an earlier, less sophisticated stage, as has been seen when a modern society inadvertently wipes out a primitive one. All this and more could be keeping the president from giving so much as a hint that UFOs are real. And hoping that the inevitable unexpected landing or crash in public will happen after he has retired to write his incomplete memoirs. Stanton Friedman, a scientist, sees the future in a different way. His views follow. The implications for mankind of aliens in the here and now will depend to a great extent on how they are presented. Either by themselves, in the middle of the World Series. Or by our own government finally admitting that "Oh, yeah, aliens have been coming here and we've known about it for more than forty years." Portraying the aliens as evil could be a force for getting residents of this planet to work together. It could be a real boon for the defense industries, with Americans, Russians, Germans, Japanese, and so on all working together for the good of humankind. But if they are presented as good, it is conceivable that the space industries will boom. There could be movement toward colonizing other planets in our solar system, moving out toward the home base of the aliens, assuming it's in the "neighborhood." Can they move us forward in space technology so that we, too, can go to the stars? Now, here's the big question: Will we go as visitors, as slaves, as equals or as possible students in some cosmic kindergarten? Will there be a space tourist busi- CRASH AT CORONA