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Stanton Friedman says the government cares about aliens' technology, not people's philosophies.

Friedman even wrote a book to enlighten others on the subject.

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A FEW MINUTES WITH: A guy with his head in the clouds

September 27, 2007

BY JIM SCHAEFER

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Stanton Friedman bills himself as a nuclear physicist and world-renowned UFO researcher. He says he was the first civilian investigator of the Roswell extraterrestrial incident in New Mexico in 1947.

And yes, says Friedman, a 73-year-old resident of Fredericton, New Brunswick, he really does believe in aliens.

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We caught up with him Tuesday, following a weekend lecture at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn.

QUESTION: What about flying saucers makes you convinced they exist?

A: A significant percentage of the cases investigated by professional people cannot be explained in any conventional form, and also have the attributes of clearly being manufactured objects, not a dim light in the distant sky, whose behavior indicates they're under intelligence control and they were made somewhere else. If we could build things that look like that and act like that, we wouldn't be building F16s, F18s, Mig29s, Mirage 5s or whatever their latest model is. Remember, from a government viewpoint, what's important about flying saucers is not the philosophical implications of alien visitations. It's the technology!

Q: Why haven't we figured it out yet? Roswell (where alien spacecraft supposedly was found) was a long time ago.

A: Look, if you'd given Christopher Columbus a nuclear submarine as a reward for discovering America ... could he build one? Of course not!

Q: Have you ever personally seen a cigar-shaped object?

A: I've smoked lots of cigars, but I've never seen a cigar-shaped UFO.

Q: You have no personal abduction story then?

A: Sorry! Look, does a woman have to get raped to know that other women get raped? I don't think so. And I've never seen Tokyo! But it's there.

Q: What would make humans so darned interesting to make aliens want to travel here and abduct us?

A: It's probably a classroom project. I used to cut up frogs. Who knows? If you look at the "why" questions, I give about 20 reasons for coming here: They're broadcasters; it's a weekly (TV) show, "Have You Seen the Boondocks?" ... (or) They're being punished. "Spend two weeks on Earth!" That's punishment enough for a lifetime.

Q: I can see you're pretty convinced. Give me your quick take on these other topics. Myth or reality?

Loch Ness Monster.

A: In my gray basket, not enough data.

Q: Abominable Snowman.

A: Bigfoot? Come on! There are enough reports from around the world, I suspect some of those are real.

Q: Detroit Lions in the Super Bowl.

A: Now we're talking mythology, aren't we?

Q: That was too easy. What else should I ask you?

A: One of the biggest things that might happen from recognizing we're not alone is we start to realize we have a planet in common with the rest of the people ... and it's time we acted like it.

Contact JIM SCHAEFER at 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com.