SUBJECT: ECLECTIC VIEWPOINT FILE: UFO3288
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Abduction by aliens isn't anything this group would scoff at
03/26/93
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Does the idea of crop circles make your head spin? Does the
thought of UFOs give you vertigo? Do rumors of Martian pyramids send
you into orbit?
Then the Eclectic Viewpoint isn't for you. The Dallas group,
whose newsletter has about 200 subscribers, is a "forum for
extraordinary science, unusual phenomena and diverse viewpoints.'
Things your average-folk-taking-the-same-route-to-work-every-day
would consider, well, WEIRD.
Among the topics listed on Eclectic director Cheyenne Turner's
business card: free energy, alternative medicine, antigravity,
extraterrestrial abductions, radionics, anomalous phenomena, unusual
archaeological finds, crop circles, age reversal theories -- all of
which are explored monthly by lecturers whose specialty is making the
incredible credible.
Saturday, the speaker is Tracy Torme, screenwriter of the film
Fire in the Sky, the "true story' of an Arizona logger abducted by
aliens. Since its March 12 release, the movie has drawn the wrath of
a strange-stories watchdog, the Committee for Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, and caused controversy
over what the label "nonfiction' really means.
But perhaps most disturbing to the public are the reasons such a
film might exist. Presented as a quasi-documentary, the movie
explores reports not just of UFO sightings (those have become small
potatoes by now) but extraterrestrial abductions the likes of which
were depicted in last year's miniseries Intruders (script also by Mr.
Torme).
What's going on? Eclectic Viewpoint wants to know. And Tracy
Torme -- a writer with sci-fi taste buds -- wants to know. He began
asking the question almost 15 years ago after reading Bud Hopkins'
book Missing Time.
"There's something going on, something physical and very real,'
Mr. Torme says via phone from Los Angeles. "I tend to be pretty
cautious about what it really is, what the purpose behind it is, and
I think with the subject of UFOs in general, it's very important to
maintain a healthy skepticism, to separate the wheat from the
chaff.'
With that mind-set, he will address Dallas listeners. The
lecture -- the only "UFO lecture' Mr. Torme plans to give during the
film's promotion -- is strictly designed to broaden people's
perspectives.
"I'm going to try to make it clear . . . that I'm not some kind
of UFO lecturer,' he says. "I'm really just there to talk about the
movie, the phenomenon and some of the reactions we've been getting.'
"Now, 18 years later,' the writer says, "you see that image on
beer commercials and camera commercials. They even abducted Gumby on
a cartoon. . . . That image has become part of the American
consciousness. And I think part of the reason that has happened is
just the weight of the number of people who claim to have seen these
beings.'
Yet Mr. Torme, who has also written for Star Trek -- The Next
Generation, doesn't exactly call himself a believer. "The movie is about
a missing person's case, where someone disappeared for five days and the
police felt murder was involved -- that's the true story. . . . As far as
where Travis went and whether these guys were telling the truth, we don't
say that's 100 percent the truth.'
In this way, Mr. Torme differs from the Eclectic Viewpoint's
previous speakers. Past guests are steadfast believers in their
respective phenomena, and many are authors, military officials or
scientists.
Recent guests
Last year, the Eclectic Viewpoint hosted Arlington-based
archaeologist and divinity scholar Vendyl Jones -- "the real Indiana
Jones' -- and David Fasold, who claims to have discovered Noah's ark
in Turkey.
Other speakers have included Robert Groden, one of the world's
leading photographic experts on the Kennedy assassination; British
astronomer and former IBM employee George Wingfield, who is director
of research at the Centre for Crop Circle Studies in England;
ex-Marine Dannion Brinkley, whose near-death experience landed him on
The Joan Rivers Show, Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live; and
Mary Nash Stoddard, head of the Dallas-based Aspartame Consumer
Safety Network.
More bizarre topics -- such as the idea that extraterrestrials
erected pyramids on Mars -- are broached by people who have a
"scientific background IF POSSIBLE,' says Eclectic Viewpoint director
Turner.
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