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of the ETH. assumption. 250 APPENDIX one thousand. Such incidents are characterized by what the witness reports as being transported into a hollow, spherical, or hemispherical space, and being subjected to a medical examination. This is often (but not always) followed by the taking of blood samples, various kinds of sexual interaction, and loss of time. The entire episode is frequently wiped out of conscious memory and is only retrievable under hypnosis. At this writing over 600 abductees have been interrogated by UFO researchers, sometimes assisted by clinical psychologists. Although nothing concrete seems to have been learned from these case studies about the origin and purpose of the visitors, those doing the investiga- tions are vocal in their claim that the abductions are further evidence In order to examine this claim, let us assume that extraterrestrial intelligence has indeed developed the ability and the desire to visit the earth. It is a reasonable assumption to expect that such visitors would know at least as much as we do in the fundamental scientific disciplines such as physics and biology. Few ufologists, in fact, argue against this In particular, the visitors would presumably know as much about medical techniques and procedures as our own practitioners. Today the average American doctor can draw blood, collect sperm and ova, or remove tissue samples from his or her patients without leaving perma- nent scars or inducing trauma. The current state of molecular bi- ology—a science which is in its infancy on earth—would already permit that same doctor to obtain unique genetic "fingerprint" information from such samples. He could also fertilize the ova and obtain "test- tube" offspring, and it is conceivable that cloning could duplicate the beings thus produced ad infinitum. A team of scientists equipped with the commonly reported UFO technology would be in an excellent position to take control of blood banks, sperm banks, or collections of embryos available at major re- search hospitals and research centers without creating the massive dis- turbances described by abduction researchers. They would be able to accomplish it while escaping detection. Equipped with the state-of-the- art techniques of current U.S. medicine, it would be conceivable that