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75 designed to prevent widespread panic -- and personal accounts of those who have been abducted and studied against their will... "From beyond the boundaries of our perceptions, intelligent beings are beckoning mankind to join the galactic community. It's an invitation which is both wondrous and terrifying. This is the nature of alien encounters. "Now as we approach the new millennium, mankind is in the midst of the most profound event in history -- actual contact with intelligent life from other planets. For nearly years, officials have been documenting routine alien encounters here on earth, and thousands of people have seen or experienced this alien presence. Yet many others still refuse to acknowledge the obvious evidence all around them. What is it like to be confronted by a creature whose intelligence and skill is far beyond the comprehension of mankind? Would it be enlightening? Would it be an exercise in terror? Or perhaps both? "At the Walt Disney World resort near Orlando, Florida, these concepts are brought to life as guests experience their own alien encounter, a sensory thriller from Disney and George Lukas. We'll give you a sneak preview later in the show. But first, we must prepare you for the future with some shocking insights from the recent past. "Alien ships seem to arrive in waves, and if the last few years are any indication, planet Earth is experiencing a tsunami of sightings... In the last few months of 1994 and lately in 1995, Gulf Breeze, Florida has been ground zero for alien encounters. Especially during the day, extraterrestrial craft have become common ornaments in the uneasy skies... -You would think these alien sightings would be front-page news. So why have they received almost no national attention? The answer is simple. For governments determined to maintain their authority, extraterrestrial contact is pure dynamite. Kevin Randle: "There's beings from another planet. We don't know where they come from, we don't know what they're doing here. There's nothing we can do about it...Any time a technologically superior civilization comes in contact with a technologically inferior civilization, the technologically inferior civilization ceases to exist. Not necessarily through conquest, not necessarily through invasion, but because the technology changes the underlying social structures of that civilization, and it disintegrates." Urich: "Those fears are reflected in a 1960 federally funded study by the Brookings Institution, which warned that public knowledge of alien life could cause civilization to collapse." "Why have aliens chosen to visit our small blue planet, hidden on the distant fringes of an insignificant star cluster? Well, we invited them here. "When we return: What is attracting alien visitors to planet earth -- Extraterrestrials take aim on America's military -- a crashed saucer becomes a top-secret bombshell -- the nation's capital becomes a cosmic cross-roads -- and later, how Disney imagineers have disigned a way to prepare humans for their inevitable alien encounter." "There have been reports of alien encounters throughout recorded history, often buried in the obscure poetry of mystics. But since the end of World War II, alien encounters have adopted a darker, more menacing demeanor. No longer just spirited lights dancing in the sky, UFOs turned more brazen, announcing themselves with surprising ferocity." "Most alien activity on earth in this century seems to have been sparked by the single most profound technological achievement in human history. The atomic bomb did more than blow away every conventional notion of combat. It also saddled mankind with the awesome responsibility of life and death for the entire planet. But what the world didn't know in 1945 was that the atomic bomb's brilliant burst of energy would also be mankind's cosmic calling card, announcing to the universe that a technological society had evolved on a small blue planet in the backwaters of the stars...So as the world celebrated the war's end in 1945, aliens who heard man's atomic trumpet were already charting their course toward earth, responding to our open invitation.