To the editors:

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Mr. Hall certainly has the right idea about what we can expect from the higher intelligences that regularly visit this planet. Is it coincidental that our bungling, intellectually repressive government also neglects our space program? Of course not. Strieber and Steiger et al aside, it is self-evident that any civilization enlightened enough to attain viable interstellar travel must function on a fundamentally different basis than ours and thus have much to offer us. Indeed, they may be the only hope we have left for continued survival as a race.

Last Monday, in fact, I saw the latest and most offensive entry in the dubious genre of underinformed UFO parody, on public access cable. The show actually featured one legitimate and well-known UFO expert, Mr. Robert Erwood, but aside from that was completely offensive and valueless. Public access cable is the epitome of degenerating moral and esthetic standards of our public discourse. Shows like the one I saw last Monday–I believe it was entitled “This Week in Joe’s Basement”–are of no value to our culture and inexcusable even as “free speech.”