system: You are Curtis Johnson, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Writing message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Michael Tauson about "Books".

They wrote:
-=> Quoting Michael Tauson to Curtis Johnson <=-
CJ> should someday do a study of how the sf and ufo believers have
CJ> borrowed from each other.
MT> Actually, it's a fairly common knowledge that there is
MT> sharing between the two.  (Well, common to me and a few folks who
MT> post more than I do in alt.aliens.* <G>)  Sightings and reported
MT> abductions increase after a television show related to them
MT> (documentary or otherwise) whioe some ideas in SF can trace their
MT> roots back to Ufology.  Movies like "Hanger 18" are direct
MT> descendents of issues that have been raised in UFO circles with a
MT> thin veil of Hollyweird glitz over them.
MT> A SF writer should have a relatively strong base in science
MT> fact, and science fact does not bear out the concept of ET
MT> origins.  While very interested in the phenomena, I am also very
MT> skeptical, a fact known on the UFO echo.  (Or it was last time I
MT> was actively participating.  I *hope* people still remember!
MT> This doesn't say that I don't want UFOs to be ET craft - I
MT> do.  And that's in part because I was a pilot (and still am at
MT> heart) and I wanna fly one of those suckers.  The FAA may have
MT> grounded me (medical), but I hardly think an alien spacecraft
MT> falls under their jurisdiction.  <G>
CJ> You should try surfing when you have several housemates.
CJ> Grrrrr. . . .
MT> One of the nice things about living alone is the exclusive
MT> use of the technology.
MT> No, that's not entirely true.  Dagger occasionally will sit
MT> in my lap and try to type.  He understands that if he paws the
MT> keyboard something happens on the screen.  I hasten to add that
MT> what he's added to HORNET (this pass) has significantly
MT> outweighed my contribution to the novel.  *sigh* ... is this
MT> gonna be one of those corroba-whatzits?
CJ> notion of borrowing from the Janissary practice of naming their
CJ> various corps (or was it officer grades?) after kitchen implements.
MT> Fork Corps?  Knife Corps I could almost accept, as I could
MT> Blender Corps and Roaster Corps.  Baster Corps I'd have to think
MT> about and Mini-wisk Corps is a definite loser.  They'd be even
MT> more unique as officer grades.  <G>

Write your reply.

assistant: The increase in sightings/reported abductions after a TV
 show does not surprise me at all.
	I have not seen "Hangar 18" but understand that it's based
 on the old ufology legend that there was a UFO crash at Roswell
 and that the bodies were kept on ice at Wright-Patterson AFB.
	Offhand, I'd say that not much written sf has made use
 of ufology ideas.  I'm struggling to think of an example, and
 can't, except for an occasional comedy (e.g., Asimov's _Playboy
 and the Slime God_, where the ufo's alien reproduces by budding
 and can't fathom the kidnapped human's explanation of human
 sexuality).  But then I think that the notion of alien abduction
 was in use by sf before the book about Betty and Barney Hill
 (_Incident at Exteter_'s the title?) came out, oh, when?
 Mid-sixties?
	Can you think of any examples of written sf borrowing
 ufology notions?
	I've seen mention of a couple of computer games that
 supposedly put you in an ET craft--with no hint as to what
 the controls do.  IIRC, one was in the _Tommy's xxxxx_ series of
 shareware.  The other was a CD-ROM based on Frderik Pohl's _Heechee_
 books, and it looked to be very good.
	Believe it or not, when one of the housemates picked up
 the phone, I was in Pine, and it wrote a smallish file at my ISP,
 filled entirely with garbage and with a name about 30 characters
 long that I haven't been able to delete!
	The two cats here are incredibly well behaved--the one
 that likes to lap-lie will not touch the keyboard.
	Hmmm. . . Generals could be _cordon bleus_, sergeants bus
 boys, and privates. . . cannon fodder.