I am by nature a skeptic. I have my doubts. Some people seem predisposed to accept stories about mysteries or the inexplicable. I'm just naturally skeptical.

I don't believe in Bigfoot or Stonehenge or the Loch Ness monster. I don't believe Elvis is still alive and working as a short-order cook at Taco Bell. I don't believe in any of the JFK conspiracy theories. I don't believe extra-terrestrials periodically visit the earth and give rides on their spacecrafts, partly because they never seem to land in Pasadena and give rides to physicists from Cal Tech; they always appear to a dirt farmer and his wife in Idaho who are missing a few teeth and whose parents are first cousins. I don't believe the budget will be balanced, or that Elizabeth Taylor will stay married this time, or that a stomach belt will melt off pounds and inches while I sleep so I can always retain my boyish figure (though I have hopes).

I have my doubts. I am part of the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-credibility-gap generation. ...