SECRETS OF ROSWELL EXPLAINED DURING PSEUDOSCIENCE LECTURE SERIES APRIL 13-14

What really happened at Roswell?

Physicist/mathematician Dave Thomas, president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason, will attempt to answer that question as the guest speaker of College of Sciences Distinguished Lecture Series, "Investigating Modern Pseudoscience," Thursday and Friday, April 13-14.

Thursday's lecture, at 8 p.m. in Room 102 of the Mills Godwin Jr. Life Sciences Building, is aimed at a general audience and will focus on Roswell, N.M., the supposed crash site of an alien spacecraft in 1947.

Through his research, Thomas has learned how the search for the origin of Roswell UFO debris led to his former professor at New Mexico Tech, Charles B. Moore.

In addition to presenting the evidence that one of Moore's post-war experiments was directly responsible for the Roswell incident, Thomas will place the incident in cultural context and explain how several of the key pieces of evidence put forward as proof of alien contact have since been exposed as hoaxes and frauds.

Thomas also is a scientific/technical consultant for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, publishers of the journal The Skeptical Inquirer.

His Friday lecture at 3 p.m. in Room 201 of the Physics/Oceanography Building, aimed at a more scientifically oriented audience, will center on "Hidden Messages and the Bible Code."

He'll discuss the 1994 research by Hebrew mathematicians that claimed the discovery of a code in the Torah that spelled out the names and titles of modern-era rabbis, linked to their dates of birth and death.

Thomas will also talk about a 1997 book titled "The Bible Code," which claimed that modern-day events such as assassinations and elections were predicted in advance in the Torah.

For more information about the lecture series, call 683-5803 or visit the Web site at http://www.physics.odu.edu/htmlstuf/sue/cal-lec-99.htm.